to_xls gem

This gem transform an Enumeration (i.e. an Array) into an excel file using the spreadsheet gem.

It is (very slightly) oriented towards exporting ActiveRecord sets, but it can be used outside of Rails as well.

Usage

@users = User.all

@users.to_xls                        # by default, it exports using the "attributes" field on the first item of the collection
@users.to_xls(:name => "Users")      # specifies the Sheet name (by default Sheet1)
@users.to_xls(:headers => false)     # don't include headers
@users.to_xls(:columns => [:name, :role]) # include only these columns, on this order
@users.to_xls(:columns => [:name, {:company => [:name, :address]}]) # able to pick associations/called methods
@users.to_xls(:columns => [:name, {:company => [:name, :address]}], :headers => ['Name', 'Company', 'Address']) # provide better names for the associated columns

Format

This gem includes a simplified way to change the format of the cells. Also this gem provides a simplified way for changing the format of the headers.

To change the format of the cells and headers the code should be like this:

User.all.to_xls :cell_format => {:color => :blue}, :header_format => {:weight => :bold, :color => :red}

To have a full list of the format admited for the cells and headers you may have a look on the source code of spreadsheet gem. This gem runs under to_xls, so the format supported by this gem are the ones of spreadsheet.

Example of use in Rails

In the controller where you want to export to excel, add the format.xls line.

class UserController < ApplicationController

  def index
    @users = User.all

    respond_to do |format|
      format.html
      format.xml { render :xml => @users }
      format.xls { send_data @users.to_xls, :filename => 'users.xls' }
    end
  end
end

Requirements

On rails, you might want to modify config/initializers/mime_types.rb and register a custom mime type there:

Mime::Type.register "application/vnd.ms-excel", :xls

Dependencies

spreadsheet gem (automatically included if you require to_xls)

Installing on rails 2.x

Include next gems in your environment.rb config file:

config.gem 'to_xls'

Then execute

rake gems:install

Installing on rails 3.x

In your Gemfile

gem 'to_xls'

Then execute

bundle install

ToXls::Writer

You can export to a file or spreadsheet book using the internal ToXls::Writer class:

ToXls::Writer.new(users, :name => 'Users').write_io(file) # writes to a given file
ToXls::Writer.new(users, :name => 'Users').write_book(book) # writes to a spreadsheet book (adds a new sheet)

The options of Writer.new(array, options) are the same as in to_xls.

Contributing to to_xls

Check out the latest master to make sure the feature hasn’t been implemented or the bug hasn’t been fixed yet
Check out the issue tracker to make sure someone already hasn’t requested it and/or contributed it
Fork the project
Start a feature/bugfix branch
Commit and push until you are happy with your contribution
Make sure to add tests for it. This is important so I don’t break it in a future version unintentionally.
Please try not to mess with the Rakefile, version, or history. If you want to have your own version, or is otherwise necessary, that is fine, but please isolate to its own commit so I can cherry-pick around it.

Copyright

Credits

Ian Link & mlecho helped implementing the formats

Changelog

1.5.0

to_xls now extends Enumerable instead of Array
Included :cell_format and :header_format options
Used bundler instead of jeweller