How to export a CSV to Excel using Powershell

Question

I\'m trying to export a complete CSV to Excel by using Powershell. I stuck at a point where static column names are used. But this doesn\'t work if my CSV has generic unknow

Answer 1

Why would you bother? Load your CSV into Excel like this:

$csv = Join-Path $env:TEMP "process.csv"
$xls = Join-Path $env:TEMP "process.xlsx"

$xl = New-Object -COM "Excel.Application"
$xl.Visible = $true

$wb = $xl.Workbooks.OpenText($csv)

$wb.SaveAs($xls, 51)

You just need to make sure that the CSV export uses the delimiter defined in your regional settings. Override with -Delimiter if need be.

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Edit: A more general solution that should preserve the values from the CSV as plain text. Code for iterating over the CSV columns taken from here.

$csv = Join-Path $env:TEMP "input.csv"
$xls = Join-Path $env:TEMP "output.xlsx"

$xl = New-Object -COM "Excel.Application"
$xl.Visible = $true

$wb = $xl.Workbooks.Add()
$ws = $wb.Sheets.Item(1)

$ws.Cells.NumberFormat = "@"

$i = 1
Import-Csv $csv | ForEach-Object {
  $j = 1
  foreach ($prop in $_.PSObject.Properties) {
    if ($i -eq 1) {
      $ws.Cells.Item($i, $j++).Value = $prop.Name
    } else {
      $ws.Cells.Item($i, $j++).Value = $prop.Value
    }
  }
  $i++
}

$wb.SaveAs($xls, 51)
$wb.Close()

$xl.Quit()
[System.Runtime.Interopservices.Marshal]::ReleaseComObject($xl)

Obviously this second approach won't perform too well, because it's processing each cell individually.