Every time somebody does something unique with PHP that is far beyond the standards and norms of PHP applications. One must say you will truly be overwhelmed by the capabilities and features of PHP language. Microsoft Excel is widely used by most of the companies as a report generation tool and data analysis tool. You must know that if by chance you ever got to work on an Enterprise Application you will have to meet the requirement levels of having to make use of the export facility for generating various Excel Reports in your web application.
In this post we will have a look at the various Libraries that the PHP developers can use for generating Excel Reports in any PHP Application and for exporting the data to Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets.
PHP Export Data
This library renders support for exporting CSV and TSV format files apart from the XLS format files. This library is built on top of the php-excel library and as well provides output support to browser , string or file.
PHP Excel Library
This library renders support for Multiple Worksheets , Images, Charts and Formulas. With best in class available options this library has the most efficient and active community projects. By using this library for generating reports you can make use of the already existing Microsoft Excel files and make them as the foundation templates for filling information or data. This library as well supports openXML formats that are used by Microsoft Office 2007 or Open Office. With an extendable support for exporting PDF or DOC type files or any other format you can as well extend the output writer class and make use of any desired format.
Excel Writer (XML) PHP Library
With support for formatting and excel formulas this library as well renders Multi Sheet support. Not only this the Excel Writer (XML) PHP Library lets you directly export from the MySQL tables or MySQL Query. This library will generate files in the MS office 2003 XML format that will open accurately in the Microsoft Excel format however the extension of the file is likely to confuse the users.
Php-Excel
A light weight library for generating Excel Reports with nominal functionality that is needed for exporting data of only a simple and easy excel file. This library provides output support only to the browser and is good if you want to export simple data that has only one excel worksheet in the file. A basic library with no support for charts, formulas or images. If you try using this library with Microsoft Office 2007 it will throw an error alert stating that this file format is not proper.
Pear Excel Writer Library
This is an amazing library for generating excel reports for any PHP Application using Multi Sheet Support , Formatting Support , Images , Formulas. There is no support for novel formats with this library only BIFF format is supported and .xls can be generated.
If you have priorly used any one of these libraries for generating Excel Reports in PHP Application please feel free to share them in the comments below.