Writing Simple Excel File from Servlet

[Joe Brigs]

This is the 1st time I've written to a file from a servlet. It's a simple task so I used "response.setContentType("application/vnd.ms-excel");". I'm readinga DB2 Table using JDBC and writing out each row to a excel spreadhseet. I first read the metadata for the column names and then I read the rest and write out one row at a time. This works great, but I need to format some of the columns ( i.e. data types and column widths etc. ) I'm trying to avoid using the jakarta poi, but will if I have to. Is there another way to format these cells ? Thanks for any help.

[Tim Moores]

How are you creating the Excel file now? As a CSV? That is unformatted, no way around that.

[Tim McGuire]

Look into what Microsoft calls "round trip xml". It involves creating a spreadsheet in XML (with the column formats you want) and saving it as XML. This saves a ton of Microsoft formatting garbage in the XML, but it allows you to manipulate the file on the server and then send it as a download that will be recognized and opened as an Excel spreadsheet.

[Joe Brigs]

I just started this task and I just assumed that "application/vnd.ms-excel" saved as xls. When I click on the link it opens up the xcel spreadsheet and when I do the save it defaults to 'tab delimited" text file.

I'm going to look into the "round trip xml" ... Thanks for the responses