#include <excel.au3> - simple question

[mLipok]

Do I need to install MS Excel ?

or this UDF use COM built in Windows ?

[BrewManNH]

You need to have Excel installed for it to work. Although there are a couple of examples floating around that can let you read an xls file without Excel installed that might have a use for simple things.

[Nessie]

As BrewManNH said you need to have installed excel. But you can do something even if on the machine is not installed excel:

Hi!

[czardas]

Interesting links. I also don't tend to use Excel very much, because I think it's kind of quirky. I prefer to hard code stuff myself, and store spread sheet data as csv. That's just me though. I know it's got some awesome features, but I don't need most of them. It seems to have issues with the kind of data I might like to store - . I discovered some bizarre accel key behaviour, and was never entirely satisfied with the default behaviour under certain other conditions. I also don't like the formulas: they don't look very much like mathematical expressions to me. I use the program to print something on occasion.

Edited March 15, 2013 by czardas

[water]

To nit-pick:

The listed examples only allow to work with XLSX (the new XML format). XLS ist not supported.

[czardas]

it's still pretty neat if you can avoid dependancies like third party applications. Despite my nitpicking, some of the grid features in Excel are actually really cool. It's only the small things that annoy me: such as not allowing automatic expansion or contraction of the grid selection to accomodate pasting (or overwriting) an undefined numbers of cells. Now why would they have decided against doing that - maybe I'm missing something. Why does Excel need to be automated at all?

Edit

Well this is perhaps somewhat unrelated to the original question (apologies for that). although I was kind of curious why the OP asked it.

Edited March 15, 2013 by czardas

[water]

Why does Excel need to be automated at all?

I need to automate Excel because I process data in AutoIt and want to create charts using the ExcelChart UDF or format and print the data.

[czardas]

I need to automate Excel because I process data in AutoIt and want to create charts using the ExcelChart UDF or format and print the data.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, only that Excel needs automating because I think it's a cumbersome program to use. The chart stuff is amazing though! Edited March 15, 2013 by czardas

[BrewManNH]

Excel has scripting built-in, as well being able to be scripted externally, because it's easier to script repetitive tasks than to do it manually every time. I thought that would be obvious.

[czardas]

Excel has scripting built-in, as well being able to be scripted externally, because it's easier to script repetitive tasks than to do it manually every time. I thought that would be obvious.

This is kind of irrelevant because 99.9% of users wouldn't know that. Even if they did know it, the information wouldn't be of much use to them. It's generally no use to accountants, scientists or mathematicians - expecting these professionals to learn a scripting language is unreasonable. I would consider this a design weakness - ignoring user requirements and overcomplicating standard proceedures.

The thing that puts me off most is the quirky behaviour - especially balking at csv format (duh!), It also doesn't seem to recognize the yen symbol '¥'. Anyway, it's still a good program, but I think it could be a lot easier to use.

Edited March 16, 2013 by czardas