ASP.Net: Export to excel file and save with save file dialog in C#

While working in software industry almost every developer at some place must have worked with export application data to any document.

In a series of export articles I’ll provide the example of exporting the data to excel, text HTML and pdf file. And in the end of all articles I’ll also provide the source code of exporting to all above formats.

In this article I’ll explain how you can export the data in excel sheet.

First of all I have created one proxy class, I’ll use this class to store the data and then export that data to excel file. (Note: I am using this class and method for sample only, if you have your own list or data table you can skip first two steps.)

So first of all I have declared on proxy class as: 

//Proxy class. public sealed class DataProxy {     public String FirstName { get; set; }     public String LastName { get; set; }     public String Email { get; set; }     public String City { get; set; } }

Now let’s create one method which will put some data in this class, later on we’ll export that data.

/// <summary> /// Get Record List. /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> private static IEnumerable<DataProxy> GetData() {     return new List<DataProxy>            {                new DataProxy                    {                        FirstName = "Sandeep",                        LastName = "Kumar",                        Email = "test1@email.com",                        City = "Gurgaon"                    },                new DataProxy                    {                        FirstName = "FName1",                        LastName = "Lname1",                        Email = "test2@email.com",                        City = "New Delhi"                    },                new DataProxy                    {                        FirstName = "FName4",                        LastName = "Lname2",                        Email = "test3@email.com",                        City = "Mumbai"                    },                new DataProxy                    {                        FirstName = "FName3",                        LastName = "Lname3",                        Email = "test4@email.com",                        City = "Mumbai"                    },                new DataProxy                    {                        FirstName = "FName4",                        LastName = "Lnam4",                        Email = "test5@email.com",                        City = "Gurgaon"                    }        }; }

So whenever I’ll call GetData method it’ll return a list of “DataProxy” containing 5 elements.

So data is ready now let’s export this data to export file, first of all take one button as:

<asp:Button runat="server" ID="btnExportReport" Text="Export" OnClick="BtnExportReportClick" />

In the code write the click event of button as:

protected void BtnExportReportClick(object sender, EventArgs e) {     ExportExcelFile(); }

So on button click I have called one method ExportExcelFile, and here is that function which will export the data to excel file:

/// <summary> /// Export to excel and download file. /// </summary> private void ExportExcelFile() {     //Get data you want to export     //here you can use your own list or data table.     var records = GetData();     var sb = new StringBuilder();     sb.AppendLine("First Name\tLast Name\tEmail Address\tCity");     foreach (var record in records)     {         sb.AppendFormat("{0}\t{1}\t{2}\t{3}"             , record.FirstName             , record.LastName             , record.Email             , record.City);         sb.AppendLine();     }     //Get current response     var response = HttpContext.Current.Response;     response.BufferOutput = true;     //clear response     response.Clear();     response.ClearHeaders();     response.ContentEncoding = Encoding.Unicode;     //provide file name.     response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment; filename=Test_Data.xls");     response.ContentType = "application/vnd.ms-excel";     response.Write(sb.ToString());     response.End(); }

And we can check output of our work as:

So that’s it for now, In my next article of export series I’ll write for text, HTML and pdf file exporting one by one.