Comments on: XML and Excel

By: Jan Karel Pieterse

Jan Karel Pieterse — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:32:00 +0000

I don't know if you can add data to an existing XML file (and something must always open the file, otherwise data can't be written to it) using Excel. I do know Excel has several limitations regarding what it can export to XML regarding the XML structure.

Excel can only export simple tables, it cannot cope with more complex structures (like the companies example I use actually). Exporting hierarchically ordered XML data is thus something you would not be using Excel for.

By: sam

sam — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 07:24:00 +0000

Hi JKP,

Thanks for the article and the files...

I have gone through this in detail and a few more articles in the reference sections..
I also found an interesting Addin on the MS website called XML tools- which lets you convert a Range in to an XML data..may be you should include it as a reference as well

I am wondering in the context of Excel-XML we are using it to Pull Data from a file.
Is it also possible to push data in to another existing file (without opening it)

Also we have been doing the above operations via ADO/VBA so far, does the XML way offer advantages...

By: Jan Karel Pieterse

Jan Karel Pieterse — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 16:03:00 +0000

Sam: Finally got through to me why, typo in filename in link. Now fixed (and tested).

By: sam

sam — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 06:12:00 +0000

Hi JKP
Not able to download the files...

By: Jan Karel Pieterse

Jan Karel Pieterse — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 14:41:00 +0000

Thanks Colin, I didn’t even bother to check that!

By: Colin Banfield

Colin Banfield — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:09:00 +0000

Note that the XML tools are available in ALL editions of Office 2007. After all the fanfare of the new XML stuff in Excel 2003 and the unprecedented (not to mention anal) step by Microsoft to limit the tools to only certain editions of Excel (thus guaranteeing its failure), Microsoft didn’t even bother to update (or build in) the XML add-in tools they provided after Office 2003 shipped. Even an obvious task, like exporting a table as XML, isn’t supported.

By: Jan Karel Pieterse

Jan Karel Pieterse — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:36:00 +0000

Thanks for spotting that. Download file has been uploaded now.

By: sam

sam — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 07:39:00 +0000

JKP – Thanks for the article, very nice…. but the download files link is broken….

By: thomas plagwitz

thomas plagwitz — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:27:00 +0000

Thanks a lot for the article translation. it seems the link http://www.jkp-ads.com/downloadscript.asp?filename=xml_en.zip is broken.