PHPExcel wont download

Question

I am studying PHPExcel and I did one of its example.

I did like this:

public function generateExcelTemplate($quotation_id) {

        //error reporting
        error_reporting(E_ALL); 

        //include path
        ini_set('include_path', ini_get('include_path').';../Classes/');

        //php excel
        include('application/libraries/PHPExcel.php'); 

        //php excel writer 2007
        include('application/libraries/PHPExcel/Writer/Excel2007.php');

        //create new phpexcel object
        echo date('H:i:s') . " Create new PHPExcel object \n";
        $objPHPExcel = new PHPExcel();

        //set properties
        echo date('H:i:s') . " Set properties \n";
        $objPHPExcel->getProperties()->setCreator('Rochelle Canale');
        $objPHPExcel->getProperties()->setLastModifiedBy('Rochelle Canale');
        $objPHPExcel->getProperties()->setTitle('My New Excel');
        $objPHPExcel->getProperties()->setSubject('My New Excel Subject');
        $objPHPExcel->getProperties()->setDescription('test document');

        //add some data
        echo date('H:i:s') . " Add some data \n";
        $objPHPExcel->setActiveSheetIndex(0);
        $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->SetCellValue('A1', 'Hello');
        $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->SetCellValue('B2', 'World');
        $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->SetCellValue('C1', 'Hello');
        $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->SetCellValue('D2', 'World');

        //rename sheet
        echo date('H:i:s') . " Rename sheet\n";
        $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->setTitle('Simple');

        //save excel 2007
        echo date('H:i:s') . " Write to excel2007 format \n";
        $objWriter = new PHPExcel_Writer_Excel2007($objPHPExcel);
        $objWriter->save(str_replace('.php','.xlsx', __FILE__));

        //ECHO DONE
        echo date('H:i:s') . " Done writing \r\n";

    }

And it looks fine because it actually generate the excel. My problem is there's no dialog for saving the file. When I check the demo and when you click the link it will prompt a confirmation box asking if you want to save or open. In my page when I load it it simple shows the text.

Answer 1

I think after all of your above code listing try putting the following code lines:

        // Set active sheet index to the first sheet, so Excel opens this as the first sheet
        $objPHPExcel->setActiveSheetIndex(0);

        // Redirect output to a client’s web browser (Excel2007)
        //clean the output buffer
        ob_end_clean();

        //this is the header given from PHPExcel examples. but the output seems somewhat corrupted in some cases.
        //header('Content-Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet');
        //so, we use this header instead.
        header('Content-type: application/vnd.ms-excel');
        header('Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="'.$properties_arr['excel_file_name'].'.xlsx"');
        header('Cache-Control: max-age=0');

        $objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objPHPExcel, 'Excel2007');
        $objWriter->save('php://output');

Note:
I assume that your above code listing is already generates a good readable Excel sheet, but you are unable to make it downloadable. My above code snippet will get done that for you!

And within CodeIgniter's config directory there is a mimes.php and you need to add/edit the line for the xlsx which is an associative key-value pair for $mimes array. Value for the key xlsx should be as follows:

'xlsx'  =>  array('application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet', 'application/zip', 'application/vnd.ms-excel'),

Hope this works!

Answer 2

If it only shows the text, your code is understood and served as html instead of php code.

Every php script needs to start with <?php eg

<?php
echo "Hello World: ".date("Y-m-d H:i");
?>

Also the file should be named *.php eg index.php

If that doesn't help make sure you installed php in your webserver, eg apt-get install libapache2-mod-php5 when you're on linux with apache.