Converting XLSX to XSL-FO to PDF

Question

Apaches POI has a ExcelToFoConverter class that allows to convert xls files to XSL-FO. Since I use XLSX files, I am worried that I will have data loss when I use this converter. POI does not offer an explicit converter for xlsx files. However, I saw that someone used the ExcelToFoConverter for xlsx files.

1. Can I just use the mentioned converter class for xlsx files?
2. If I can't, what are other options?
3. Or is there a much better solution for converting XLST files to PDF without(!) having a program like LibreOffice or OpenOffice on the server?

Answer 1

If you can get from XLSX > HTML:

https://poi.apache.org/apidocs/org/apache/poi/hssf/converter/ExcelToHtmlConverter.html

http://allstarnix.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/use-java-to-convert-excel-to-html.html

then you can use easily get from HTML > PDF using FlyingSaucer.

https://github.com/flyingsaucerproject/flyingsaucer

Commercial solutions would include Aspose Cells for Java:

http://www.aspose.com/java/excel-component.aspx

Answer 2

For option 3 I have used iText to create PDF files. See the answers to this question for more info.

Answer 3

I wrote an xsl sometime ago that did Excel XML format conversion to XSL FO. It is available in the Cool tools section of the RenderX website.

http://www.renderx.com/files/demos/cooltools/Excel2FO.zip