phpexcel to download

hello i am new to phpexcel, and i was wondering if there is some way send the excel i have created to the clients download without saving it on my server or to delete it right after he downloads it

i am trying to create an "export button" on a page that will give the user a "pop-up" with the excel that he wants that i have just created.

now after i create the table i do :

$objXLS->getActiveSheet()->getColumnDimension("A")->setAutoSize(true);
$objXLS->getActiveSheet()->getColumnDimension("B")->setAutoSize(true);
				
$objXLS->getActiveSheet()->setTitle('Test Stats');
				
$objXLS->setActiveSheetIndex(0);
				
$objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objXLS, 'Excel5');
$objWriter->save(__DIR__."/test1.xls");

but that saves it to my server

thank you

Instead of saving it to a file, save it to php://output^­Docs:

$objWriter->save('php://output');

This will send it AS-IS to the browser.

You want to add some headers^­Docs first, like it's common with file downloads, so the browser knows which type that file is and how it should be named (the filename):

// We'll be outputting an excel file
header('Content-type: application/vnd.ms-excel');

// It will be called file.xls
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="file.xls"');

// Write file to the browser
$objWriter->save('php://output');

First do the headers, then the save. For the excel headers see as well the following question: Setting mime type for excel document.

$excel = new PHPExcel();
header('Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="your_name.xls"');
header('Cache-Control: max-age=0');

// Do your stuff here

$writer = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($excel, 'Excel5');

// This line will force the file to download
$writer->save('php://output');

Use this call

$objWriter->save('php://output');

To output the XLS sheet to the page you are on, just make sure that the page you are on has no other echo's,print's, outputs.

FOR XLSX USE

SET IN $xlsName name from XLSX with extension. Example: $xlsName = 'teste.xlsx';

$objPHPExcel = new PHPExcel();

$objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objPHPExcel, 'Excel2007');
header('Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="'.$xlsName.'"');
header('Cache-Control: max-age=0');
$objWriter->save('php://output');

FOR XLS USE

SET IN $xlsName name from XLS with extension. Example: $xlsName = 'teste.xls';

$objPHPExcel = new PHPExcel();

$objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objPHPExcel, 'Excel5');
header('Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="'.$xlsName.'"');
header('Cache-Control: max-age=0');
$objWriter->save('php://output');

posible you already solved your problem, any way i hope this help you.

all files downloaded starts with empty line, in my case where four empty lines, and it make a problem. No matter if you work with readfile(); or save('php://output');, This can be fixed with adding ob_start(); at the beginning of the script and ob_end_clean(); just before the readfile(); or save('php://output');.

 header('Content-type: application/vnd.ms-excel');
 
 header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="file.xlsx"');
 
 header('Cache-Control: max-age=0');
 
 header ('Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT');
 
 header ('Last-Modified: '.gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s').' GMT');
 
 header ('Cache-Control: cache, must-revalidate');
 
 header ('Pragma: public');
 
 $objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objPHPExcel, 'Excel5');

 $objWriter->save('php://output');

I tried the $writer->save('php://output'); command proposed by most answers.

But this happened to download a corrupted file.

To fix it, I had to do this:

    $objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objPHPExcel, 'Excel2007');
    header('Content-type: application/vnd.ms-excel');
    header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="filename.xlsx"');
    header('Cache-Control: max-age=0');
    $path = 'path/to/temp/file.xlsx';
    // save content to temporary file
    $objWriter->save($path);
    // This header was key to me, in order to get it working
    header("Content-Length: ".filesize($path));
    // output file content
    readfile($path);
    // delete temporary file
    unlink($path);