Recently I needed to build and Excel file from a web application. The most common solution is to generate a CSV or TSV file, which can then be imported into Excel. In my case, the client wanted multiple worksheets, so I searched and found PHPExcel. This library provides simple tools to build OpenXML files. There are also libraries for Word and Powerpoint.

Here is how I solved the problem:

$objPHPExcel = new PHPExcel();
$sheet_count = 0;





foreach ($courses as $c) {if ($sheet_count > 0) {

        // This creates the next sheet in the sequence

        // One sheet per "course" in this example

        $objPHPExcel->createSheet();

        $objPHPExcel->setActiveSheetIndex($sheet_count);

    }

    // Add tab label to the sheet

    $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->setTitle(substr($c->name,0,30));



    // Sheet heading in the first row

    $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->setCellValue('A1',$c->name);

    // Column headings in the second row

    $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->setCellValue('C2','Email');

    $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->setCellValue('D2','Last Name');

    $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->setCellValue('E2','First Name');

    $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->setCellValue('F2','Middle');

    $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->setCellValue('G2','Suffix');





    $row = 2;

    $members = $c->getMembers(999999);

    foreach ($members as $m) {

        $row++;

        $first_last = split(' ',$m->name);

        $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->setCellValue('C'.$row,$m->email);

        $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->setCellValue('D'.$row,$first_last[0\

]);

        $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->setCellValue('E'.$row,$first_last[1\

]);

        $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->setCellValue('F'.$row ,""); // midd\

le

        $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->setCellValue('G'.$row ,""); // suff\

ix

    }

    $sheet_count++;

}

// Redirect output to a client’s web browser

header('Content-Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheet\

ml.sheet');

header('Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="MEMBERS.xlsx"');

header('Cache-Control: max-age=0');

$objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objPHPExcel, 'Excel2007');

$objWriter->save('php://output');