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Reading excel without office (compiled script)


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This question may be trivial: I am working on an application where customers can define parameters etc in Excel files (also). But the definition may be done in an office environment, whereas the definition file may be used in production, where Excel may not be available.

 

So, in a compiled script (including excel.au3), can I read excel XLSX files (read-only is OK), or do I need certain components like ADO, or.. am I out of luck ?

I can imagine others have been in similar situations, so would like to know the practicalities of the problem. If impossible, I will have to come up with something else / workaround.

 

I am just a hobby programmer, and nothing great to publish right now.

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When you need to access Excel files without Excel being installed you could use ADO:

Or check my ADO tutorial in the wiki including example scripts.

Or check mLipok's ADO UDF (but it is still a Beta version):

 

My UDFs and Tutorials:

Spoiler

UDFs:
Active Directory (NEW 2022-02-19 - Version 1.6.1.0) - Download - General Help & Support - Example Scripts - Wiki
ExcelChart (2017-07-21 - Version 0.4.0.1) - Download - General Help & Support - Example Scripts
OutlookEX (2021-11-16 - Version 1.7.0.0) - Download - General Help & Support - Example Scripts - Wiki
OutlookEX_GUI (2021-04-13 - Version 1.4.0.0) - Download
Outlook Tools (2019-07-22 - Version 0.6.0.0) - Download - General Help & Support - Wiki
PowerPoint (2021-08-31 - Version 1.5.0.0) - Download - General Help & Support - Example Scripts - Wiki
Task Scheduler (NEW 2022-07-28 - Version 1.6.0.1) - Download - General Help & Support - Wiki

Standard UDFs:
Excel - Example Scripts - Wiki
Word - Wiki

Tutorials:
ADO - Wiki
WebDriver - Wiki

 

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in the office environment, have your application read the Excel made by the users (as you probably already do now), but save it to csv or tsv (or any other plain text, like ini) for the transfer to production.

 

Signature - my forum contributions:

Spoiler

UDF:

LFN - support for long file names (over 260 characters)

InputImpose - impose valid characters in an input control

TimeConvert - convert UTC to/from local time and/or reformat the string representation

AMF - accept multiple files from Windows Explorer context menu

DateDuration -  literal description of the difference between given dates

Apps:

Touch - set the "modified" timestamp of a file to current time

Show For Files - tray menu to show/hide files extensions, hidden & system files, and selection checkboxes

SPDiff - Single-Pane Text Diff

 

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If you could post an example of your file we could suggest how to best solve your problem.

My UDFs and Tutorials:

Spoiler

UDFs:
Active Directory (NEW 2022-02-19 - Version 1.6.1.0) - Download - General Help & Support - Example Scripts - Wiki
ExcelChart (2017-07-21 - Version 0.4.0.1) - Download - General Help & Support - Example Scripts
OutlookEX (2021-11-16 - Version 1.7.0.0) - Download - General Help & Support - Example Scripts - Wiki
OutlookEX_GUI (2021-04-13 - Version 1.4.0.0) - Download
Outlook Tools (2019-07-22 - Version 0.6.0.0) - Download - General Help & Support - Wiki
PowerPoint (2021-08-31 - Version 1.5.0.0) - Download - General Help & Support - Example Scripts - Wiki
Task Scheduler (NEW 2022-07-28 - Version 1.6.0.1) - Download - General Help & Support - Wiki

Standard UDFs:
Excel - Example Scripts - Wiki
Word - Wiki

Tutorials:
ADO - Wiki
WebDriver - Wiki

 

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@water Thank you for suggestion on ADO. I think I will go with that. Essentially it's me being too lazy to build a GUI to input structured information. I need to store some global parameters and along with that an array 1..n of information. Think a little along lines of a graphical layout: you have paper size, margins, resolution etc as parameters, and 1..n objects with content, rotation, font, and many other parameters.

Developing a usable gui for all that + data storage is not simple (for me ;) ), so that's reason behind excel format. In excel, it's trivial to format a few cells, protect a few others, add healines, and pretty much done.

 

I am just a hobby programmer, and nothing great to publish right now.

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IIRC there as a UDF available to present an INI file in an editable format in a GUI.
Would this fit your needs?

My UDFs and Tutorials:

Spoiler

UDFs:
Active Directory (NEW 2022-02-19 - Version 1.6.1.0) - Download - General Help & Support - Example Scripts - Wiki
ExcelChart (2017-07-21 - Version 0.4.0.1) - Download - General Help & Support - Example Scripts
OutlookEX (2021-11-16 - Version 1.7.0.0) - Download - General Help & Support - Example Scripts - Wiki
OutlookEX_GUI (2021-04-13 - Version 1.4.0.0) - Download
Outlook Tools (2019-07-22 - Version 0.6.0.0) - Download - General Help & Support - Wiki
PowerPoint (2021-08-31 - Version 1.5.0.0) - Download - General Help & Support - Example Scripts - Wiki
Task Scheduler (NEW 2022-07-28 - Version 1.6.0.1) - Download - General Help & Support - Wiki

Standard UDFs:
Excel - Example Scripts - Wiki
Word - Wiki

Tutorials:
ADO - Wiki
WebDriver - Wiki

 

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1 hour ago, water said:

Or check mLipok's ADO UDF (but it is still a Beta version):

 

@Myicq I encourage you to take advantage.
If you have questions, please visit SUPPORT TOPIC.

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