Export html table to xls template PHPExcel

Question

All in the title,

I just want to export a html table to .xls template using PHPExcel .

I googled the last two days but I couldn't find a working solution.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT

I found this in stackoverflow, but I was unable to work with it

  // $sql = sql query e.g "select * from mytablename"
    // $filename = name of the file to download 
        function queryToExcel($sql, $fileName = 'name.xlsx') {
                // initialise excel column name
                // currently limited to queries with less than 27 columns
        $columnArray = array("A", "B", "C", "D", "E", "F", "G", "H", "I", "J", "K", "L", "M", "N", "O", "P", "Q", "R", "S", "T", "U", "V", "W", "X", "Y", "Z");
                // Execute the database query
                $result =  mysql_query($sql) or die(mysql_error());

                // Instantiate a new PHPExcel object
                $objPHPExcel = new PHPExcel();
                // Set the active Excel worksheet to sheet 0
                $objPHPExcel->setActiveSheetIndex(0);
                // Initialise the Excel row number
                $rowCount = 1;
    // fetch result set column information
                $finfo = mysqli_fetch_fields($result);
// initialise columnlenght counter                
$columnlenght = 0;
                foreach ($finfo as $val) {
// set column header values                   
  $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->SetCellValue($columnArray[$columnlenght++] . $rowCount, $val->name);
                }
// make the column headers bold
                $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->getStyle($columnArray[0]."1:".$columnArray[$columnlenght]."1")->getFont()->setBold(true);

                $rowCount++;
                // Iterate through each result from the SQL query in turn
                // We fetch each database result row into $row in turn

                while ($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result, MYSQL_NUM)) {
                    for ($i = 0; $i < $columnLenght; $i++) {
                        $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->SetCellValue($columnArray[$i] . $rowCount, $row[$i]);
                    }
                    $rowCount++;
                }
// set header information to force download
                header('Content-type: application/vnd.ms-excel');
                header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="' . $fileName . '"');
                // Instantiate a Writer to create an OfficeOpenXML Excel .xlsx file        
                // Write the Excel file to filename some_excel_file.xlsx in the current directory                
                $objWriter = new PHPExcel_Writer_Excel2007($objPHPExcel); 
                // Write the Excel file to filename some_excel_file.xlsx in the current directory
                $objWriter->save('php://output');
            }

Answer 1

PHP runs on the server, generates an HTML page, and only the generated page is sent to the client!

PHPExcel is a PHP library, and hence also runs on the server, generating an Excel file (instead of an HTML page), which is sent to the client. You can't use PHPExcel to generate an XLS file from the HTML page, since that page resides on the client side. PHPExcel only has access to the information at the server side (for example, local PHP variables or an SQL database).

If you want to use PHPExcel to generate your Excel file, please copy over the PHPExcel source files and examples on your server. Just point your browser to one of the example pages, and see how it generates the Excel file, giving you a download option, instead of showing it in browser.