how to create and download excel document using asp.net

Question

How to create and download excel document using asp.net ?

The purpose is to use xml, linq or whatever to send an excel document to a customer via a browser.

Answer 1

There are quite a few ways of handling this, depending on how extensive the Excel functionality is. Binoj's answer works if the Excel is just a spreadsheet and has no direct Excel functionality built in. The client can add functionality, concats, etc. These are "dumb" excel docs until the client does soemthing.

To create a more full featured Excel doc, you havve two basic choices that I can think of offhand.

1. Use either the office components (re: bad) to create an excel document, or a third party component, like SoftArtisan's ExcelWriter. Great component, but there is a cost.

2. Use a control on the page that allows export to Excel. Most vendors of ASSP.NET controls have this functionality on their grids.

Option #1 allows you pretty much all functionality of Excel. Option #2 is a bit more limited, at least in the controls I have tried.