phpexcel to download - php

Question

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

Answer 1

Instead of saving it to a file, save it to php://output­Docs:
$objWriter->save('php://output');
This will send it AS-IS to the browser.
You want to add some headers­Docs 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.

Answer 2

$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');

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

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');

Answer 5

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');

Answer 6

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');.

Answer 7

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);