Convert & Edit Excel Workbooks Online

Each application is designed because there was initially a first original need, WorkbookTag and WorkbookHtmlConverter modules solve specific problems you probably have regarding Excel workbooks sharing…

A couple of months ago I was faced to a very particular problem. As a software Java consultant I was a member for the maintenance of an existing Struts 1.x legacy application used since 2005. The new requirement expressed by the client was to be able to mimic an existing Microsoft Excel workbook as HTML. Not just to display the existing information, but really allow the users to modify numbers entered inside some cells and refresh the screen when other cells were displaying computed formula results.

I immediately started to look at a popular existing API: Apache POI project. The guys at Apache have done wonderful work for opening the Microsoft proprietary formats to the Java world. I was almost convinced there was a product to simply convert *.xls binary files into HTML documents so half the work would then be done!

Unfortunately there was nothing matching exactly was I was looking for. So I took a look at the effort for developing something light and usable inside a Java web application. The concrete technology involved was:

·         Compatibility with Java

·         Avoiding Microsoft Office installation onto the workstation

·         Integration with existing web application

·         Embedded inside Jsp or other templating framework

·         Able to automatically convert xls files to pure DHTML

·         Allowing interaction with the user for editable cells

·         Session based (each user modifying it’s own virtual workbook)

After a couple of weeks of development, I’m pleased to present the WorkbookTag product. In fact I really hope this project is a starting point for multiples projects, but for now there is a tag library module (WorkbookTag) and a simple Java Swing based module (WorkbookHtmlConverter). The first one is intended for integration inside Web Application projects like JSF, Struts 1.x, Struts 2.x, Spring MVC, etc. The second module is intended for people needing simply to convert existing Excel workbook into HTML. The good news: these modules don’t require Microsoft Office classic installation and licence.

To see the WorkbookTag in action I created a simple Web ARchive file (war) that can be automaticaly deployed on popular web application servers (jBoss, Tomcat, Jetty, Websphere, etc.). This demo application show the live convertion of multiple kind of worksheets and also allow user to upload his own worksheet to see the HTML convertion result. There is aslo a demo of an editable worksheet demonstrating cells updates and formula result refreshed live.

The following screen capture shows 
an existing Excel timesheet:

And now the same timesheet rendered live into DHTML with Ajax capabilities for refreshing automatically all formula cells:

 

The WorkbookTag source code and demo application can be downloaded from Sourceforge.net and a little online utility application using the WorkbookHtmlConverter application can be installed from here. If you like the results then download the full featured application from Sourceforge.net !

 

André Masson (amwebexpert@gmail.com)