Write to Spreadsheet File.vi question

[wd8ivl]

Hello group,

When using this VI in an EXE, does Excel have to be installed on the machine for it to work if there is a .xls for this VI to append it's write to?

Thanks,

Mike

LV8.2

OS = XP

[MikeS81]

Hi Mike,

did you want to attach a vi for us?

Mike

[MikeS81]

Hi Mike,

i´m sorry, i don´t understand it the first time but now i got it. If you use the "Write to Spreadsheet File,.vi" Excel has not to be installed, because this vi works independently from Excel. As far as i know you can´t write data to an excel file with this function.

Mike

Message Edited by MikeS81 on 02-27-2008 09:55 PM

[Matthew_Kelton]

If you are talking about the standard Write to Spreadhseet File in the File pallette, then this doesn't create an Excel file.  It creates a text file which can be imported into Excel.  I have seen some people generate a file with the xls extension so Excel will open it up on a double-click, but it is still just a text file.

In that case, Excel is not needed to be installed on the computer the program runs on.

If you are speaking of a different Write to Spreadsheet File VI which does create an actual Excel spreadsheet, then you will need Excel installed to run the program.  Not only that, it probably has to be the same version of Excel, as the VI most likely uses ActiveX and it will not be the same for Office 2003 as it is for Office 2007.

But, I think you are probably talking about the standard VI.

[bells]

hi i wanted to know hw to generate a spread sheet with about 20 coulmns one from each channel into the same sheet. with the puppose of generating a log sheet 

can we use write to spreadsheet VI or is there something else

[tbob]

You can use the write to spreadsheet file.  You would be able to read the file using Notepad or Excel.  If you set the delimiter to a comma, name your file file.csv, then use Excel to open the columns would line up nicely.  If you use the default tab delimiter, I don't think it separates the columns in Excel, but I think it would show up neatly aligned in Notepad.  The output of the write to spreadsheet file is simply a text file with a delimiter separating the items in a row.

[smercurio_fc]

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tbob wrote:

If you use the default tab delimiter, I don't think it separates the columns in Excel,

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It does - we do it all the time. It depends on whether you open the file from the OS or whether you open it from within Excel. If you open it from within Excel then you'll probably get the wizard where you tell it what the delimeter is. If you save the filename with a .xls extension (even though it's a text file), and you open it from the OS, it should open in Excel all nice and neat. At least, that's what we've always seen. 

Message Edited by smercurio_fc on 05-11-2010 04:51 PM

[tbob]

Yep, it works.  Thanx, smercurio. 

I have always used CSV.  I think its a throwback to the UNIX world that I was in for so long, and that was a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away.  I guess I never tried tab delimiters.  Now that I know it opens fine in Excel, I'll use them more often.