How to freeze the header row in an Excel spreadsheet exported from ASP.NET

I’m exporting an ASP.NET gridview to Excel using the following function. The formatting is working really well, except I need to freeze the header row in Excel on the export. I’m really trying to avoid using a 3rd party Excel plugin for this, but unless there’s some archaic excel markup in my AddExcelStyling function.

    Public Sub exportGrid(ByVal psFileName As String)

        Response.Clear()
        Response.Buffer = True
        Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.NoCache)
        Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.ms-excel"
        Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment;filename=PriceSheet.xls")
        Response.Charset = ""
        Me.EnableViewState = False
        Dim sw As New StringWriter()
        Dim htw As New HtmlTextWriter(sw)
        sfggcPriceSheet.RenderControl(htw)
        Response.Write("<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content=""text/html; charset=utf-8"">" + Environment.NewLine)
        Response.Write(AddExcelStyling())
        Response.Write(sw.ToString())
        Response.Write("</body>")
        Response.Write("</html>")
        Response.End()

    End Sub

And the formatting black magic:

   Private Function AddExcelStyling() As String


    Dim sb As StringBuilder = New StringBuilder()
    sb.Append("<html xmlns:o='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office'" + Environment.NewLine + _
    "xmlns:x='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:excel'" + Environment.NewLine + _
    "xmlns='http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40'>" + Environment.NewLine + _
    "<head>")
    sb.Append("<style>" + Environment.NewLine)

    sb.Append("@page")
    sb.Append("{margin:.25in .25in .25in .25in;" + Environment.NewLine)

    sb.Append("mso-header-margin:.025in;" + Environment.NewLine)
    sb.Append("mso-footer-margin:.025in;" + Environment.NewLine)

    sb.Append("mso-page-orientation:landscape;}" + Environment.NewLine)
    sb.Append("</style>" + Environment.NewLine)

    sb.Append("<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>" + Environment.NewLine)
    sb.Append("<x:ExcelWorkbook>" + Environment.NewLine)

    sb.Append("<x:ExcelWorksheets>" + Environment.NewLine)
    sb.Append("<x:ExcelWorksheet>" + Environment.NewLine)

    sb.Append("<x:Name>PriceSheets</x:Name>" + Environment.NewLine)
    sb.Append("<x:WorksheetOptions>" + Environment.NewLine)

    sb.Append("<x:Print>" + Environment.NewLine)
    sb.Append("<x:ValidPrinterInfo/>" + Environment.NewLine)

    sb.Append("<x:PaperSizeIndex>9</x:PaperSizeIndex>" + Environment.NewLine)
    sb.Append("<x:HorizontalResolution>600</x:HorizontalResolution" + Environment.NewLine)

    sb.Append("<x:VerticalResolution>600</x:VerticalResolution" + Environment.NewLine)
    sb.Append("</x:Print>" + Environment.NewLine)

    sb.Append("<x:Selected/>" + Environment.NewLine)
    sb.Append("<x:DoNotDisplayGridlines/>" + Environment.NewLine)

    sb.Append("<x:ProtectContents>False</x:ProtectContents>" + Environment.NewLine)
    sb.Append("<x:ProtectObjects>False</x:ProtectObjects>" + Environment.NewLine)

    sb.Append("<x:ProtectScenarios>False</x:ProtectScenarios>" + Environment.NewLine)
    sb.Append("</x:WorksheetOptions>" + Environment.NewLine)

    sb.Append("</x:ExcelWorksheet>" + Environment.NewLine)
    sb.Append("</x:ExcelWorksheets>" + Environment.NewLine)

    sb.Append("<x:WindowHeight>12780</x:WindowHeight>" + Environment.NewLine)
    sb.Append("<x:WindowWidth>19035</x:WindowWidth>" + Environment.NewLine)

    sb.Append("<x:WindowTopX>0</x:WindowTopX>" + Environment.NewLine)
    sb.Append("<x:WindowTopY>15</x:WindowTopY>" + Environment.NewLine)

    sb.Append("<x:ProtectStructure>False</x:ProtectStructure>" + Environment.NewLine)
    sb.Append("<x:ProtectWindows>False</x:ProtectWindows>" + Environment.NewLine)

    sb.Append("</x:ExcelWorkbook>" + Environment.NewLine)
    sb.Append("</xml><![endif]-->" + Environment.NewLine)

    sb.Append("</head>" + Environment.NewLine)
    sb.Append("<body>" + Environment.NewLine)

    Return sb.ToString()

End Function

Contents hide

Answers:

Method 1

Method 2

Answers:

Thank you for visiting the Q&A section on Magenaut. Please note that all the answers may not help you solve the issue immediately. So please treat them as advisements. If you found the post helpful (or not), leave a comment & I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Method 1

Modify the WorksheetOption element to something like the following:

<x:WorksheetOptions>
     <x:Selected/>
     <x:FreezePanes/>
     <x:FrozenNoSplit/>
     <x:SplitHorizontal>1</x:SplitHorizontal>
     <x:TopRowBottomPane>1</x:TopRowBottomPane>
     <x:ActivePane>2</x:ActivePane>
     <x:Panes>
      <x:Pane>
       <x:Number>3</x:Number>
      </x:Pane>
      <x:Pane>
       <x:Number>2</x:Number>
      </x:Pane>
     </x:Panes>
     <x:ProtectContents>False</x:ProtectContents>
     <x:ProtectObjects>False</x:ProtectObjects>
     <x:ProtectScenarios>False</x:ProtectScenarios>
    </x:WorksheetOptions>

Notice the FreezePanes element. I cut this out of a spreadsheet that I had saved as HTML with the first row frozen. When this file is opened with Excel, the first row is frozen.

EDIT:
To have the header row print on each page, you will need something like this:

<x:ExcelName>
  <x:Name>Print_Area</x:Name>
  <x:SheetIndex>1</x:SheetIndex>
  <x:Formula>=Sheet1!$A$2:$F$97</x:Formula>
 </x:ExcelName>
 <x:ExcelName>
  <x:Name>Print_Titles</x:Name>
  <x:SheetIndex>1</x:SheetIndex>
  <x:Formula>=Sheet1!$1:$1</x:Formula>
 </x:ExcelName>

You will need to modify the values in the formula dynamically for your data.

Method 2

Perhaps you can use a trick that I employ when I am trying to do “specialty” formatting, etc…

Create an XLS with all the row and cell formats you’d like already expressed. Then COPY it, add your data, and SAVE it.

In this manner you do not need any payed-for plug-ins, and you ALWAYS get EXACTLY whatever formatting you want…

Need more than one specialty? Create another my_MT_Excel.xls with the needed formatting.

You could have a folder full of these things all ready to go without resorting to the more intricate programming techniques.

tob

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0

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