Sometimes, I also use PHP for implementing features for my websites. A very interesting and professional managed open source class library for reading and writing Excel documents in PHP is the “PHPExcel” project which can be found on CodePlex.

For using the libraries, you may have at least PHP 5.2.0 installed on your server. The extensions “php_zip”, “php_xml” and “php_gd2” may also be active; however the first one is only needed if you would like to create documents in the XLSX format. The class library also contains function for reading and writing Excel documents in the older XLS binary file format. A detailed English description about the project can be found on its website.

The sister projects “PHPPowerPoint” and “PHPWord” are relatively new and also partially managed by the same developers of “PHPExcel”. In the following, the links to the different projects:

• PHP Excel Website on Codeplex, English
• PHP PowerPoint Website on Codeplex, English
• PHP Word Website on Codeplex, English

This article has also been published on the German Version of the Excel Ticker blog.

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