How do I generate a PDF/Excel file from an SQL database using C# and MVC 2?

Question

I need to make the information in the database usable by allowing the user to download it as a PDF or Excel spreadsheet (either one works, both is perfect).

I've looked around at a bunch of options, but I really can't decide which one I should use, let alone if any of those options are actually useful. Most of the options I've found revolve around converting already existing HTML files into PDFs which is not what I need. Also, it needs to be free . My bosses haven't given me a budget to spend on this

I'm not sure what other information I should include here.

Well, any help is greatly appreciated. If you have questions about missing information, I'll get it posted ASAP. I'm here all day, so I'll be able to respond to any comments very quickly.

EDIT: Oh wow! Huge thanks, guys, for the massive response! I got a ton of ideas. This is super-helpful. Thanks!

Answer 1

if you want to generate an Excel (or also a Word) you can use openXml. You can create a new document exactly the way you want from pure code.

OpenXml SDK page

Answer 2

The solution I usually propose to my clients in this situation is to use Sql Server Reporting Services (SSRS). You can use the ReportViewer control included with it in order to generate PDF's, Excel spreadsheets, XML files, CSV files, and others. If you need ad hoc reporting, there is a Report Builder available as well.

Barring that, you can use OpenXml to generate Excel spreadsheets and there are a host of PDF toolkits available.

Answer 3

Have you looked into the reportviewer control, which is part of Visual Studio?

It allows you to export the report in PDF or Excel format.

Answer 4

http://www.carlosag.net/tools/excelxmlwriter/sample

check this might be useful for you

Answer 5

There are lots of reporting solutions out there such as SQL Server Reporting Services(for which you might already have a license). Take a look at Reporting (free || open source) Alternatives to Crystal Reports in Winforms which can likely be applied to the web with a bit of serialization.

I would suggest thinking about rolling your own depending on the situation. You could use pdfsharp for the pdf export and EPPlus for excel. They are both very easy to use and, I'm pretty sure, available in nuget with a couple of clicks.

Answer 6

If you want to go the Excel route, i'd recommend this article from Stephen Walther entitled ASP.NET MVC Tip #2 - Create a custom Action Result that returns Microsoft Excel Documents . This uses an old trick of writing an HTML document with an Excel mime type. This is different than streaming a native Excel file. And it's fairly easy to change the to rendering a CSV file if you want to strip it down, and make it a more universal file. Just remember to double-quote all the fields if there's a possibility of commas showing up.

Answer 7

If what your doing isn't too complicated you can use CSV files. CSV stands for comma separated values, and it is what it sounds like. You can create simple tables and columns using commas. For example paste the following lines into a text file:

heading1,heading2,heading3
info1,info2,info3
info1,info2,info3

Save the text file as a .csv file and voila - an excel spreadsheet. Obviously it is extremely easy to build these looping object collections. Mind you if you need any complicated text formatting etc then it is not really the best option.