.NET - preview Excel files (XP)

Is ther开发者_如何转开发e any method to preview Excel files on XP besides WebBrowser control? How does the WebBrowser itself preview them?

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This issue is discussed here, and it seems there are several other options (not including 3rd party components).

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The WebBrowser itself is a Microsoft IE component and hence with a page that loads an ActiveX under the browser, the ActiveX control interacts with the MS-Office's Excel library via InterOp to display the Excel Spreadsheet on the page...The other option is to obtain a library that can read the Excel in a raw native binary format, that is interpret the binary structure and decipher what it means before showing the data...

Hope this helps, Best regards, Tom.

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Older versions of Office have a limited functionality ActiveX control (Office Web Control / OWC) which can display an Excel workbook in the browser. Excel 2007 dropped support for the OWC controls.

Excel 2010 is adding new web controls which can display a spreadsheet in the browser. However, these new controls depend on Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2010.

SpreadsheetGear for .NET is an Excel compatible spreadsheet component for .NET which includes a Windows Forms Control which can read / write / edit / calculate / display / print / etc... Excel workbooks in .NET applications.

SpreadsheetGear can also display images from Excel charts or ranges of cells as demonstrated by the ASP.NET samples here.

You can download a free trial here if you want to try SpreadsheetGear yourself.

Disclaimer: I own SpreadsheetGear LLC