PHPExcel Writes Junk characters when running the code on AWS. - php

Question

I am facing problem with PHPExcel excel download code.A download code which is working on one server (netcore server) but same set of code not working on AWS server.can any one help me to figure out what could be the exact issue?? following is the phpexcel download code :
error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors', TRUE);
ini_set('display_startup_errors', TRUE);
date_default_timezone_set('Europe/London');
if (PHP_SAPI == 'cli')
die('This example should only be run from a Web Browser');
/** Include PHPExcel */
require_once '../Classes/PHPExcel.php';
// Create new PHPExcel object
$objPHPExcel = new PHPExcel();
// Set document properties
$objPHPExcel->getProperties()->setCreator("Maarten Balliauw")
->setLastModifiedBy("Maarten Balliauw")
->setTitle("Office 2007 XLSX Test Document")
->setSubject("Office 2007 XLSX Test Document")
->setDescription("Test document for Office 2007 XLSX, generated using PHP classes.")
->setKeywords("office 2007 openxml php")
->setCategory("Test result file");
// Add some data
$objPHPExcel->setActiveSheetIndex(0)
->setCellValue('A1', 'Hello')
->setCellValue('B2', 'world!')
->setCellValue('C1', 'Hello')
->setCellValue('D2', 'world!');
// Miscellaneous glyphs, UTF-8
$objPHPExcel->setActiveSheetIndex(0)
->setCellValue('A4', 'Miscellaneous glyphs')
->setCellValue('A5', 'éàèùâêîôûëïüÿäöüç');
// Rename worksheet
$objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->setTitle('Simple');
// Set active sheet index to the first sheet, so Excel opens this as the first sheet
$objPHPExcel->setActiveSheetIndex(0);
// Redirect output to a client’s web browser (Excel5)
header('Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="01simple.xls"');
header('Cache-Control: max-age=0');
// If you're serving to IE 9, then the following may be needed
header('Cache-Control: max-age=1');
// If you're serving to IE over SSL, then the following may be needed
header ('Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT'); // Date in the past
header ('Last-Modified: '.gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s').' GMT'); // always modified
header ('Cache-Control: cache, must-revalidate'); // HTTP/1.1
header ('Pragma: public'); // HTTP/1.0
$objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objPHPExcel, 'Excel5');
$objWriter->save('php://output');
Excel file is downloaded but with Junk/Un-supported characters
PKU~AG�D�X�[Content_Types].xml��MN�0��"�%nY ��vAa �(0��ؖg�w{&i�#�nbE�{��y��d۸l m�����X�(���)���F��;#1_�����c)j�x/%��E��y� �QĿi!��K�

Answer 1

I ran into this exact problem while doing an xlsx file and found that it was a buffer issue. To solve it I used the php output control function ob_end_clean(); right before save. So in your case it would look like:
$objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objPHPExcel, 'Excel5');
ob_end_clean();
$objWriter->save('php://output');

Answer 2

I had the same problem.
ob_end_clean(); $objWriter->save('php://output');
This will remove unwanted characters from excel.

Answer 3

I've faced the same problem
you can try this format
require_once './application/Classes/PHPExcel/IOFactory.php';
$objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objPHPExcel, 'Excel5'); //Excel2007
ob_clean();
header("Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel; charset=utf-8");
header("Content-type: application/x-msexcel; charset=utf-8");
header('Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="Filename.xls"');
header("Expires: 0");
header("Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0");
header("Cache-Control: private",false);
$objWriter->save('php://output');