transform an xls to a xml / open xls with c#

I want to n开发者_如何转开发avigate into an Excel .xls file with my c# application. The problem is that I don't know how to do it. I tried to open the file with office libraries, etc., but I get a lot of problems and I get defeated. Because of that, I was looking into transforming the xls to an xml document with the c# application, but I don't know really well how to do it, or if it is even possible.

I was thinking that probably I have to use the office libraries for this process, and would be the same.

How can I do it more efficiently? I also don't know if I must have Excel installed, is it needed?

Thanks!

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You should be able to use EPPlus for this. Its free and open source: http://epplus.codeplex.com/

I've used it for similar problems in the past and its worked great. You do not need Excel installed to use it.

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You could connect to the xls file using Microsoft Jet Database engine. You can establish an Oledb

string strConn = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;" +
                  "Data Source="c:\test.xls;" +
                  "Extended Properties=Excel 8.0;";

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This may help you

How do I convert an XLS document to XML in C#?

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/office/excel2xml.aspx

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/office/excelxmlspreadsheet.aspx