How to export dataGridView data Instantly to Excel

Question

I have 10k rows and 15 column in my data grid view. I want to export this data to an excel sheet o button click. I have already tried with the below code.

private void btExport_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel._Application app  = new Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Application();
        Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel._Workbook workbook =  app.Workbooks.Add(Type.Missing);        
        Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel._Worksheet worksheet = null;                   
        app.Visible = true;
        worksheet = workbook.Sheets["Sheet1"];
        worksheet = workbook.ActiveSheet;                  
        for(int i=1;i<dataGridView1.Columns.Count+1;i++)
        {
             worksheet.Cells[1, i] = dataGridView1.Columns[i-1].HeaderText;
        }    
        for (int i=0; i < dataGridView1.Rows.Count-1 ; i++)
        {
            for(int j=0;j<dataGridView1.Columns.Count;j++)
            {
                if (dataGridView1.Rows[i].Cells[j].Value != null)
                {
                    worksheet.Cells[i + 2, j + 1] = dataGridView1.Rows[i].Cells[j].Value.ToString();
                }
                else
                {
                    worksheet.Cells[i + 2, j + 1] = "";
                }
            }
        }
    }

This is working for me but it is taking lots of time to complete exporting process.

Is it possible to export from dataGridView (with 10k rows)to excel instantly on a button click?

Other than this, when I tried copy all dataGridview contents to clip board and then paste it to excel sheet manually, it happen almost instantly.

So is there a way to copy all dataGridView cells to clip board and paste it to excel sheet(with cell formatting) on a button click?

I have code for copy to clipboard as below, but I don't know how to paste it in to a new excel sheet by opening it.

        private void copyAllToolStripMenuItem_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        dataGridView1.SelectAll();
        DataObject dataObj = dataGridView1.GetClipboardContent();
        if (dataObj != null)
            Clipboard.SetDataObject(dataObj);
    }

Please help with an example. I am new to C#.

Answer 1

This answer is for the first question, why it takes so much time and it offers an alternative solution for exporting the DataGridView to Excel.

MS Office Interop is slow and even Microsoft does not recommend Interop usage on server side and cannot be use to export large Excel files. For more details see why not to use OLE Automation from Microsoft point of view.

Interop saves Excel files in XLS file format (old Excel 97-2003 file format) and the support for Office 2003 has ended. Microsoft Excel released XLSX file format with Office 2007 and recommends the usage of OpenXML SDK instead of Interop. But XLSX files are not really so fast and doesn’t handle very well large Excel files because they are based on XML file format. This is why Microsoft also released XLSB file format with Office 2007, file format that is recommended for large Excel files. It is a binary format. So the best and fastest solution is to save XLSB files.

You can use this C# Excel library to save XLSB files, but it also supports XLS and XLSX file formats.

See the following code sample as alternative of exporting DataGridView to Excel:

// Create a DataSet and add the DataTable of DataGridView 
DataSet dataSet = new DataSet();
dataSet.Tables.Add((DataTable)dataGridView);
//or ((DataTable)dataGridView.DataSource).Copy() to create a copy

// Export Excel file 
ExcelDocument workbook = new ExcelDocument();
workbook.easy_WriteXLSBFile_FromDataSet(filePath, dataSet, 
     new EasyXLS.ExcelAutoFormat(EasyXLS.Constants.Styles.AUTOFORMAT_EASYXLS1), 
     "Sheet1");

If you also need to export the formatting of the DataGridView check this code sample on how to export datagridview to Excel in C#.

Answer 2

This line works only for the DataGridView Control on Windows Forms:

DataObject dataObj = dataGridView1.GetClipboardContent();

This one addresses the same issue, but for the DataGrid control for the WPF Framework:

    private void copyDataGridContentToClipboard()
    {
        datagridGrupeProductie.SelectAll();
        datagridGrupeProductie.ClipboardCopyMode = DataGridClipboardCopyMode.IncludeHeader;

        ApplicationCommands.Copy.Execute(null, datagridGrupeProductie);
        datagridGrupeProductie.UnselectAll();
    }


    private void rightClickGrupeProductie_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        copyDataGridContentToClipboard();
        Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Application excelApp;
        Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Workbook excelWkbk;
        Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Worksheet excelWksht;
        object misValue = System.Reflection.Missing.Value;
        excelApp = new Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Application();
        excelApp.Visible = true;
        excelWkbk = excelApp.Workbooks.Add(misValue);
        excelWksht = (Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Worksheet)excelWkbk.Worksheets.get_Item(1);
        Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Range CR = (Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Range)excelWksht.Cells[1, 1];
        CR.Select();
        excelWksht.PasteSpecial(CR, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, true);
    }

Answer 3

Interop is slow and has other issues, using the the clipboard seems non extensible. Here are two other ways to do this

1. Work with Excel 2007+ files directly instead of working with Excel, it'll be much (much) faster. You can use OpenXML (http://openxmldeveloper.org/) which is Microsoft's SDK. The best way to learn OpenXML is to download the Productivity tool (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5124), ittakes an existing file and generates the code required to create it. Another, perhaps simpler, option is to use ClosedXML (http://closedxml.codeplex.com/). It seems a lot easier to use (look at the example http://closedxml.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Showcase&referringTitle=Home), but I have no experience with it. I'm sure there are other libraries that wrap work with Excel.

2. Work with excel via OLEDB. This allows you to work with Excel as if it's a dababase. See http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/8500/Reading-and-Writing-Excel-using-OLEDB or Performance of OLEDB to read Excel for examples and more details.

I'd start with ClosedXML.

Answer 4

I solved this by simple copy and paste method. I don't know it is the best way to do this but,for me it works good and almost instantaneously. Here is my code.

    private void copyAlltoClipboard()
    {
        dataGridView1.SelectAll();
        DataObject dataObj = dataGridView1.GetClipboardContent();
        if (dataObj != null)
            Clipboard.SetDataObject(dataObj);
    }
    private void button3_Click_1(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        copyAlltoClipboard();
        Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Application xlexcel;
        Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Workbook xlWorkBook;
        Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Worksheet xlWorkSheet;
        object misValue = System.Reflection.Missing.Value;
        xlexcel = new Excel.Application();
        xlexcel.Visible = true;
        xlWorkBook = xlexcel.Workbooks.Add(misValue);
        xlWorkSheet = (Excel.Worksheet)xlWorkBook.Worksheets.get_Item(1);
        Excel.Range CR = (Excel.Range)xlWorkSheet.Cells[1, 1];
        CR.Select();
        xlWorkSheet.PasteSpecial(CR, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, true);          
    }

Thanks.

Answer 5

that's what i use for my gridview, try to use it for yr data , it works perfectly :

        GridView1.AllowPaging = false;
        GridView1.DataBind();

        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

        for (int k = 0; k < GridView1.Columns.Count; k++)
        {
            //add separator
            sb.Append(GridView1.Columns[k].HeaderText+";");

        }


        //append new line
        sb.Append("\r\n");
        for (int i = 0; i < GridView1.Rows.Count; i++)
        {
            for (int k = 0; k < GridView1.Columns.Count; k++)
            {
                sb.Append(GridView1.Rows[i].Cells[k].Text+";");
            }
            sb.AppendLine();
        }

Answer 6

I did not intend to steal @Jake and @Cornelius's answer, so i tried editing it. but it was rejected. Anyways, the only improvement I have to point out is about avoiding extra blank column in excel after paste. Adding one line dataGridView1.RowHeadersVisible = false; hides so called "Row Header" which appears on the left most part of DataGridView, and so it is not selected and copied to clipboard when you do dataGridView1.SelectAll();

private void copyAlltoClipboard()
    {
        //to remove the first blank column from datagridview
        dataGridView1.RowHeadersVisible = false;
        dataGridView1.SelectAll();
        DataObject dataObj = dataGridView1.GetClipboardContent();
        if (dataObj != null)
            Clipboard.SetDataObject(dataObj);
    }
    private void button3_Click_1(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        copyAlltoClipboard();
        Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Application xlexcel;
        Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Workbook xlWorkBook;
        Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Worksheet xlWorkSheet;
        object misValue = System.Reflection.Missing.Value;
        xlexcel = new Excel.Application();
        xlexcel.Visible = true;
        xlWorkBook = xlexcel.Workbooks.Add(misValue);
        xlWorkSheet = (Excel.Worksheet)xlWorkBook.Worksheets.get_Item(1);
        Excel.Range CR = (Excel.Range)xlWorkSheet.Cells[1, 1];
        CR.Select();
        xlWorkSheet.PasteSpecial(CR, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, true);          
    }