Excel exports
Evan Miller makes the case for offering xls-exports instead of csv-exports.
Most people of your website’s users are also Excel users. When they export their data as CSV, they’ll probably just bring it into Excel first to have a look around. You should probably offer an explicit XLS export, and take it seriously.http://www.evanmiller.org/please-offer-an-excel-export-option.html
An xls-file is capable of things that 'll never be possible in csv:
- freezing the header row
- formatting important cells
- multiple sheets in one file
- specify numer formatting
- formulas
This is how you export all values from a given repository that returns Eloquent models:
Excel::create($pathToFile, function($excel) {
$excel->sheet('The sheet name', function($sheet) {
$sheet->freezeFirstRow();
$sheet->cells('A1:Z1', function($cells) {
$cells->setFontWeight('bold');
$cells->setBorder('node', 'none', 'solid', 'none');
});
$sheet->fromModel($this->yourOwnRepository->getAll());
});
})->export('xls');
The result is an excel-file with the header row frozen and underlined and it's values in bold.
What are your thoughts on "Excel exports"?