Read MS Excel files without MS Office installation

Hi,

I have built with the help of FlowHeater free a tool that provides, from an Excel file, a formatted flat file in order to print labels for the delivery of packages. This tool works perfectly on my Windows PC with Microsoft Office.

I then wanted to install this tool on the server of the company, and use batch to start delivery with the files provided by customers. I’ve bought a FlowHeater licence but, problem, this server is equipped with the free Oracle Open Office instead of Microsoft Office. So I can read (despite my myopia Excel files on this server but FlowHeater cannot!

Is it possible to indicate to FlowHeater to use Open Office for read input file or must I buy a Microsoft Office license?

Best Regards,
Gilbert
[Request via Email]

Hi Gilbert,

You could try to use the OleDB Adapter instead of the Excel Adapter ! This works without an MS Office installation on your server.

The OleDB Adapter needs for MS Excel files the following Connection string.

Office 2007/2010 Excel Files
Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0; Data Source=input.xlsx; Extended Properties="Excel 12.0 Xml; HDR=No"

Office 97-2003 Excel Files
Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0; Data Source=input.xls; Extended Properties="Excel 8.0; HDR=No"

NOTE: HDR=No = without field names header, HDR=Yes = with field names header

Try to make a connection test then switch to the tab "Fields / Data types". Here you can choose the available Excel sheet names from the combo box. After choosing a sheet name below you will see a SQL select like this

Select * from your_sheet_name$

This select you have to change to
Select * from [your_sheet_name$]

Or if you want to use a range
Select * from [your_sheet_name$A3:G100]

Now click the load schema button and the OleDB Adapter reads the containing field information. Now you can read from Excel files without an MS Excel/Office installation on your server.

Hello,

Thank you very much,
Now FlowHeater works perfectly without installing MSOffice on my server.
The water is now warm without transfer to other containers