Develop Reference

How do I get specific text from excel worksheet using C#?

I'm wanting to find multiple cells where a string is present. So usually a cell will have a int and the next cell will have a string. Is there anyway to find the string and print the value(int) to the console. So column A would have int and column B would be string. If the int doesn't have a string then it doesn't get printed. I've tried a couple methods on here but can't find what I'm looking for.
string fileExcel = #"C:\test.xlsx";
Application x1Application = new Application();
Workbook x1Workbook = x1Application.Workbooks.Open(fileExcel);
Worksheet x1Worksheet = x1Workbook.ActiveSheet;
var x1Range = (Excel.Range)x1Worksheet.Columns["A:B"];

Office interop isn't the most intuitive API, so you will need to be able to experiment quickly in a test environment to see what works and what doesn't work. Also, there are a lot of examples on MSDN for Office interop, and you will likely need to browse many examples to piece things together. The code below is mostly taken from How to: Programmatically Search for Text in Worksheet Ranges
In the test.xlsx file I have the following data
A
B
1
alpha
2
bravo
3
charlie
string fileExcel = #"C:\test.xlsx";
var application = new Excel.Application();
var workbook = application.Workbooks.Open(fileExcel);
var worksheet = workbook.ActiveSheet;
var range = (Excel.Range)worksheet.Columns["B:B"];
var foundRange = range.Find("bravo",
Type.Missing,
Excel.XlFindLookIn.xlValues,
Excel.XlLookAt.xlPart,
Excel.XlSearchOrder.xlByRows,
Excel.XlSearchDirection.xlNext,
false,
Type.Missing,
Type.Missing);
if (foundRange != null)
{
var numberRange = application.get_Range($"A{foundRange.Row}");
Console.WriteLine(foundRange.Value);
Console.WriteLine(numberRange.Value);
}
The above code should print
bravo
2
Also note, that the above code is very bare bones just to help you get started. One of the reasons that the Office interop is difficult to work with is because things are so dynamic. Likely you will need a lot more null checks and type safety checks to make sure things are stable.

find exact string in excel sheet in C# program

I am using c# program to search a text in my excel sheet. i have excel sheet called "MASTER" and in that sheet, there are a lot of text in column B. I want to look for
text "apple" inside column B. here is my code:
Excel.Worksheet workSheet;
workSheet = (Excel.Worksheet)xlWorkBook.Worksheets["MASTER"];
string result;
string utterance = "apples";
range1 = workSheet.Columns["B:B"] as Excel.Range;
Excel.Range findRange
findRange = range1.Find(utterance);
result = (string) (range2.Cells[findRange1.Row, 2] as Excel.Range).Value2;
it can search through the column B for input utterance "apples". however, in that column, there are a lot of apples. "applepie", "applejam","apple", etc. and the result from above code is "applepie". I think it because it just find the text contain "apple". my question is how to make it find the exact string so the output will be "apple" from column B?

Range.Find has many other arguments (see documentation), especially LookAt, see demo below:
var app = new Excel.Application();
var workbook = app.Workbooks.Open("C:\\Path\\File.xlsx");
var sheet = workbook.Worksheets["MASTER"];
var range = (Excel.Range)sheet.Columns["B:B"];
var result = range.Find("apples", LookAt: Excel.XlLookAt.xlWhole);
var address = result.Address;//cell address
var value = result.Value2;//cell value
//close or do something else

You can use the method Split, to treat every word as an array element
range1 = workSheet.Columns["B:B"] as Excel.Range;
var words = range1.Split(' ');
foreach(var word in words)
{
if (word == utterance)
Console.WriteLine(word);
}

Reading data from Excel file in c#

Hi I have an excel file settings.xlsx. I want to read the data from this file and assign the variables used in my code with the data.
example
Column1 Column2
Row1 Data 500
Row2 Address 30
Row3 Value FPGA
I have Data,Address and Value as variables in my code.
Can someone assist me with a pseudocode of c# to open a file and read the contents from it as per my requirement?
I want to search "Data" word in the excel file and take the value next to the cell containing "Data" and assign it to the variable "Data". I know it is confusing but I really want the final data to look like something below.
Data=500 //Finally I want my variables to have the data as follows
Address=30
Value= FPGA
I tried opening a file in my code.But since I am new to c#,i am not able to understand what is going wrong in my code.
I am stuck at this point. Open function is giving an error. Kindly help me. I tried to open the excel file in my c# code. But somehow it is saying Open function overload method doesn't take one argument. How to open and read the file?
string Filepath = #Filename;
Excel.Application excelapp = new Excel.Application();
excelapp.Visible = true;
var MyBook = excelapp.Workbooks.Open(Filepath);
It will be really helpful if somone gives a pseudocode for the same.
Hi,
I was able to open the file.
string Filepath = Path.Combine(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory(), Filename);
Excel.Application excelapp = new Excel.Application();
excelapp.Visible = true;
var Workbook = excelapp.Workbooks.Open(Filepath, 0, false, 5, "", "", true, Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlPlatform.xlWindows, "\t", false, false, 0,true,1, 0);
var xlWorkSheet = (Excel.Worksheet)Workbook.Worksheets.get_Item(2);
Excel.Range range = xlWorkSheet.UsedRange;
But when I try to store the cell value in my variable, it gives me an error. I somehow cannot use Cells.value. I tried using the following but not able to store the data. Can anybody help?
uint pbaudRate2 = Convert.ToUInt32(range.Value2.ToString());

If you can make a slight change in your excel file, there is a much easier way to read the data. You need to have Column names in the first row (any names will do e.g. "ColumnName", "ColumnValue"), and data in subsequent rows. Then you can use code like this:
string xlConnStr = #"Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0; Data Source=yourfullfilepathandname.xlsx;Extended Properties='Excel 8.0;HDR=Yes;';";
var xlConn = new OleDbConnection(xlConnStr);
var da = new OleDbDataAdapter("SELECT * FROM [Sheet1$]", xlConn);
var xlDT = new DataTable();
da.Fill(xlDT);
You will now be able to access the values from the DataTable. In your case: xlDT.Rows[1][1] will hold the value of address (in this case 30). One thing to note: numbers in an Excel spreadsheet need to be retrieved as doubles and then cast if you want something else:
int myAddress = (int)(double)xlDT.Rows[1][1];

Here is a small demo how to read a range of Excel cells
// cf. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302084/en-us
Excel.Application XL = new Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Application();
Excel._Workbook WB = XL.Workbooks.Open(fileName, ReadOnly: true);
Excel._Worksheet WS = (Excel._Worksheet)WB.Sheets[sheetName];
Excel.Range R = WS.get_Range(GetAddress(row1, col1), GetAddress(row2, col2));
object[,] arr = (object[,])R.Value;
....
private string GetAddress(int rowNumber, int columnNumber)
{
int dividend = columnNumber;
string columnName = String.Empty;
int modulo;
while (dividend > 0)
{
modulo = (dividend - 1) % 26;
columnName = Convert.ToChar(65 + modulo).ToString() + columnName;
dividend = (int)((dividend - modulo) / 26);
}
return columnName + rowNumber;
}
The cell values are copied to a 2D array of objects. Further processing depends on the value types.
Note that the transfer of an array is much faster than a nested loop of single cell copy operations.

Cell Style Alignment on a Range

I'm having a problem formatting cells in an Excel sheet. For some reason my code seems to be changing the style of all cells when I just want to change the style of a few specified, or a specified range.
Here's some of the code that I am using:
app = new Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Application();
workbook = app.Workbooks.Add(1);
worksheet = (Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Worksheet)workbook.Sheets[1];
//Change all cells' alignment to center
worksheet.Cells.Style.HorizontalAlignment = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlHAlign.xlHAlignCenter;
//But then this line changes every cell style back to left alignment
worksheet.Cells[y + 1, x + 2].Style.HorizontalAlignment = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlHAlign.xlHAlignLeft;
Why would it change the style of multiple cells when I set it to just work on one? Is it not supposed to work how I want it to? Is there another way of doing this?

This works good
worksheet.get_Range("A1","A14").Cells.HorizontalAlignment =
Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlHAlign.xlHAlignLeft;

Based on this comment from the OP, "I found the problem. apparentlyworksheet.Cells[y + 1, x + 1].HorizontalAlignment", I believe the real explanation is that all the cells start off sharing the same Style object. So if you change that style object, it changes all the cells that use it. But if you just change the cell's alignment property directly, only that cell is affected.

Maybe declaring a range might workout better for you.
// fill in the starting and ending range programmatically this is just an example.
string startRange = "A1";
string endRange = "A1";
Excel.Range currentRange = (Excel.Range)excelWorksheet.get_Range(startRange , endRange );
currentRange.Style.HorizontalAlignment = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlHAlign.xlHAlignLeft;

Don't use "Style:
worksheet.Cells[y,x].HorizontalAlignment = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlHAlign.xlHAlignLeft;

Modifying styles directly in range or cells did not work for me. But the idea to:
create a separate style
apply all the necessary style property values
set the style's name to the Style property of the range
, given in MSDN How to: Programmatically Apply Styles to Ranges in Workbooks did the job.
For example:
var range = worksheet.Range[string.Format("A{0}:C{0}", rowIndex++)];
range.Merge();
range.Value = "some value";
var style = workbook.AddStyle();
style.HorizontalAlignment = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlHAlign.xlHAlignLeft;
range.Style = style.Name;

ExcelApp.Sheets[1].Range[ExcelApp.Sheets[1].Cells[1, 1], ExcelApp.Sheets[1].Cells[70, 15]].Cells.HorizontalAlignment =
Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlHAlign.xlHAlignCenter;
This works fine for me.

Something that works for me. Enjoy.
Excel.Application excelApplication = new Excel.Application() // start excel and turn off msg boxes
{
DisplayAlerts = false,
Visible = false
};
Excel.Workbook workBook = excelApplication.Workbooks.Open(targetFile);
Excel.Worksheet workSheet = (Excel.Worksheet)workBook.Worksheets[1];
var rDT = workSheet.Range(workSheet.Cells[monthYearNameRow, monthYearNameCol], workSheet.Cells[monthYearNameRow, maxTableColumnIndex]);
rDT.Merge();
rDT.Value = monthName + " " + year;
var reportDateRowStyle = workBook.Styles.Add("ReportDateRowStyle");
reportDateRowStyle.HorizontalAlignment = XlHAlign.xlHAlignCenter;
reportDateRowStyle.Font.Color = System.Drawing.ColorTranslator.ToOle(System.Drawing.Color.Black);
reportDateRowStyle.Font.Bold = true;
reportDateRowStyle.Font.Size = 14;
rDT.Style = reportDateRowStyle;

Manikandan's answer is good. For SpreadSheetGear users (a C# framework for interacting easier with spreadsheets) try this:
workbook.Worksheets[0].Cells["B1:B4"].HorizontalAlignment = HAlign.Center;.
This will align all the cells in your sheet from B1 to B4 (column 2- row 1 through 4).

Format an Excel column (or cell) as Text in C#?

I am losing the leading zeros when I copy values from a datatable to an Excel sheet. That's because probably Excel treats the values as a number instead of text.
I am copying the values like so:
myWorksheet.Cells[i + 2, j] = dtCustomers.Rows[i][j - 1].ToString();
How do I format a whole column or each cell as Text?
A related question, how to cast myWorksheet.Cells[i + 2, j] to show a style property in Intellisense?

Below is some code to format columns A and C as text in SpreadsheetGear for .NET which has an API which is similar to Excel - except for the fact that SpreadsheetGear is frequently more strongly typed. It should not be too hard to figure out how to convert this to work with Excel / COM:
IWorkbook workbook = Factory.GetWorkbook();
IRange cells = workbook.Worksheets[0].Cells;
// Format column A as text.
cells["A:A"].NumberFormat = "#";
// Set A2 to text with a leading '0'.
cells["A2"].Value = "01234567890123456789";
// Format column C as text (SpreadsheetGear uses 0 based indexes - Excel uses 1 based indexes).
cells[0, 2].EntireColumn.NumberFormat = "#";
// Set C3 to text with a leading '0'.
cells[2, 2].Value = "01234567890123456789";
workbook.SaveAs(#"c:\tmp\TextFormat.xlsx", FileFormat.OpenXMLWorkbook);
Disclaimer: I own SpreadsheetGear LLC

If you set the cell formatting to Text prior to adding a numeric value with a leading zero, the leading zero is retained without having to skew results by adding an apostrophe. If you try and manually add a leading zero value to a default sheet in Excel and then convert it to text, the leading zero is removed. If you convert the cell to Text first, then add your value, it is fine. Same principle applies when doing it programatically.
// Pull in all the cells of the worksheet
Range cells = xlWorkBook.Worksheets[1].Cells;
// set each cell's format to Text
cells.NumberFormat = "#";
// reset horizontal alignment to the right
cells.HorizontalAlignment = XlHAlign.xlHAlignRight;
// now add values to the worksheet
for (i = 0; i <= dataGridView1.RowCount - 1; i++)
{
for (j = 0; j <= dataGridView1.ColumnCount - 1; j++)
{
DataGridViewCell cell = dataGridView1[j, i];
xlWorkSheet.Cells[i + 1, j + 1] = cell.Value.ToString();
}
}

Solution that worked for me for Excel Interop:
myWorksheet.Columns[j].NumberFormat = "#"; // column as a text
myWorksheet.Cells[i + 2, j].NumberFormat = "#"; // cell as a text
This code should run before putting data to Excel. Column and row numbers are 1-based.
A bit more details. Whereas accepted response with reference for SpreadsheetGear looks almost correct, I had two concerns about it:
I am not using SpreadsheetGear. I was interested in regular Excel
communication thru Excel interop without any 3rdparty libraries,
I was searching for the way to format column by number, not using
ranges like "A:A".

Before your write to Excel need to change the format:
xlApp = New Excel.Application
xlWorkSheet = xlWorkBook.Sheets("Sheet1")
Dim cells As Excel.Range = xlWorkSheet.Cells
'set each cell's format to Text
cells.NumberFormat = "#"
'reset horizontal alignment to the right
cells.HorizontalAlignment = Excel.XlHAlign.xlHAlignRight

I've recently battled with this problem as well, and I've learned two things about the above suggestions.
Setting the numberFormatting to # causes Excel to left-align the value, and read it as if it were text, however, it still truncates the leading zero.
Adding an apostrophe at the beginning results in Excel treating it as text and retains the zero, and then applies the default text format, solving both problems.
The misleading aspect of this is that you now have a different value in the cell. Fortuately, when you copy/paste or export to CSV, the apostrophe is not included.
Conclusion: use the apostrophe, not the numberFormatting in order to retain the leading zeros.

Use your WorkSheet.Columns.NumberFormat, and set it to string "#", here is the sample:
Excel._Worksheet workSheet = (Excel._Worksheet)_Excel.Worksheets.Add();
//set columns format to text format
workSheet.Columns.NumberFormat = "#";
Note: this text format will apply for your hole excel sheet!
If you want a particular column to apply the text format, for example, the first column, you can do this:
workSheet.Columns[0].NumberFormat = "#";
or this will apply the specified range of woorkSheet to text format:
workSheet.get_Range("A1", "D1").NumberFormat = "#";

if (dtCustomers.Columns[j - 1].DataType != typeof(decimal) && dtCustomers.Columns[j - 1].DataType != typeof(int))
{
myWorksheet.Cells[i + 2, j].NumberFormat = "#";
}

I know this question is aged, still, I would like to contribute.
Applying Range.NumberFormat = "#" just partially solve the problem:
Yes, if you place the focus on a cell of the range, you will read text in the format menu
Yes, it align the data to the left
But if you use the type formula to check the type of the value in the cell, it will return 1 meaning number
Applying the apostroph behave better. It sets the format to text, it align data to left and if you check the format of the value in the cell using the type formula, it will return 2 meaning text

//where [1] - column number which you want to make text
ExcelWorksheet.Columns[1].NumberFormat = "#";
//If you want to format a particular column in all sheets in a workbook - use below code. Remove loop for single sheet along with slight changes.
//path were excel file is kept
string ResultsFilePath = #"C:\\Users\\krakhil\\Desktop\\TGUW EXCEL\\TEST";
Excel.Application ExcelApp = new Excel.Application();
Excel.Workbook ExcelWorkbook = ExcelApp.Workbooks.Open(ResultsFilePath);
ExcelApp.Visible = true;
//Looping through all available sheets
foreach (Excel.Worksheet ExcelWorksheet in ExcelWorkbook.Sheets)
{
//Selecting the worksheet where we want to perform action
ExcelWorksheet.Select(Type.Missing);
ExcelWorksheet.Columns[1].NumberFormat = "#";
}
//saving excel file using Interop
ExcelWorkbook.Save();
//closing file and releasing resources
ExcelWorkbook.Close(Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing);
Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(ExcelWorkbook);
ExcelApp.Quit();
Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(ExcelApp);

You need to format the column to be a string.
You can use the link https://supportcenter.devexpress.com/ticket/details/t679279/import-from-excel-to-gridview
For converting the ExcelDataSource, you can also refer to https://supportcenter.devexpress.com/ticket/details/t468253/how-to-convert-exceldatasource-to-datatable