Import and Export Reference

With Spread, you can open Microsoft Excel files, work with data from Excel files, and save data out to Excel files. This reference summarizes how Spread Windows Forms handles Microsoft Excel files. When bringing an Excel file into Spread (importing) and when saving Spread files to an Excel format (exporting), not all of the content and features are preserved, mostly because of differences in the way Spread and Microsoft handle certain features, but most of the data can be managed successfully. The intention of the import and export capability is to handle as much of the data and formatting of a spreadsheet or set of spreadsheets as possible. For more information about import and export of Excel files, refer to these topics.

The information about Excel XLS files in these topics is based on BIFF8 (Binary Interchange File Format, version 8 from Microsoft) which is the file format for several versions of Microsoft Excel (such as Excel 97, Excel 2000, and Excel XP) and Excel XLSX (BIFF12 XML format in Excel 2007). Throughout this documentation, the shorthand name Excel is used for all the types of Excel files that are supported by Spread for Windows Forms. Throughout this documentation, the shorthand name Spread is used to refer to Spread for Windows Forms.