I am using Apache POI API
to generate excel spreadsheet
to output some data.
The problem I am facing is when the spreadsheet is created and opened, columns are not expanded so that some long text like Date formatted text is not showing up on first glance.
I could just double click the column border in excel to expand or drag the border to adjust the column width but there could be 20+ columns and there is no way I want to do that manually every time I open the spreadsheet :(
I found out (though could be wrong method) groupRow()
and setColumnGroupCollapsed()
might be able to do the trick but no luck. Maybe I'm using it in wrong way.
Sample Code snippet
Workbook wb = new HSSFWorkbook();
CreationHelper createHelper = wb.getCreationHelper();
//create sheet
Sheet sheet = wb.createSheet("masatoSheet");
//not really working yet.... :(
//set group for expand/collapse
//sheet.groupRow(0, 10); //just random fromRow toRow argument values...
//sheet.setColumnGroupCollapsed(0, true);
//create row
Row row = sheet.createRow((short)0);
//put a cell in the row and store long text data
row.createCell(0).setCellValue("Loooooooong text not to show up first");
When this spreadsheet is created, the "Looooooong text not to show up first" string is in the cell but since the column is not expanded only "Loooooooo" is showing up.
How can I configure it so that when I open my spreadsheet, the column is already expanded???
After you have added all your data to the sheet, you can call autoSizeColumn(int column)
on your sheet to autofit the columns to the proper size
Here is a link to the API.
See this post for more reference
Problem in fitting the excel cell size to the size of the content when using apache poi
Tip : To make Auto size work , the call to sheet.autoSizeColumn(columnNumber)
should be made after populating the data into the excel.
Calling the method before populating the data, will have no effect.
If you want to auto size all columns in a workbook, here is a method that might be useful:
public void autoSizeColumns(Workbook workbook) {
int numberOfSheets = workbook.getNumberOfSheets();
for (int i = 0; i < numberOfSheets; i++) {
Sheet sheet = workbook.getSheetAt(i);
if (sheet.getPhysicalNumberOfRows() > 0) {
Row row = sheet.getRow(sheet.getFirstRowNum());
Iterator<Cell> cellIterator = row.cellIterator();
while (cellIterator.hasNext()) {
Cell cell = cellIterator.next();
int columnIndex = cell.getColumnIndex();
sheet.autoSizeColumn(columnIndex);
}
}
}
}
For Excel POI:
sheetName.autoSizeColumn(cellnum);
You can try something like this:
HSSFSheet summarySheet = wb.createSheet();
summarySheet.setColumnWidth(short column, short width);
Here params are:column number in sheet and its width
But,the units of width are pretty small, you can try 4000 for example.
sample code below
HSSFWorkbook wb = new HSSFWorkbook();
HSSFSheet sheet = wb.createSheet("your sheet name");
HSSFRow row = sheet.createRow(0);
cell = row.createCell(0);
cell.setCellValue("A BIG NAME WITH AUTO SIZE FEATURE ENABLED");
//this is crucial
sheet.autoSizeColumn(0);
//argument must be cell number
cell = row.createCell(1);
cell.setCellValue("a big name without auto size feature enabled");
Check the output and go nuts :)
If you know the count of your columns (f.e. it's equal to a collection list). You can simply use this one liner to adjust all columns of one sheet (if you use at least java 8):
IntStream.range(0, columnCount).forEach((columnIndex) -> sheet.autoSizeColumn(columnIndex));
Its very simple, use this one line code
dataSheet.autoSizeColumn(0)
or give the number of column in bracket
dataSheet.autoSizeColumn(cell number )
You can wrap the text as well. PFB sample code:
CellStyle wrapCellStyle = new_workbook.createCellStyle();
wrapCellStyle.setWrapText(true);
You can use setColumnWidth()
if you want to expand your cell more.