Different Ways to Open Files

With Aspose.Cells it is simple to open files, for example, to retrieve data, or to use a designer template to speed up the development process.

How to Open an Excel File via a Path

Developers can open a Microsoft Excel file using its file path on the local computer by specifying it in the Workbook class constructor. Simply pass the path in the constructor as a string. Aspose.Cells will automatically detect the file format type.

// For complete examples and data files, please go to https://github.com/aspose-cells/Aspose.Cells-for-.NET
// The path to the documents directory.
string dataDir = RunExamples.GetDataDir(System.Reflection.MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().DeclaringType);
            
// Opening through Path
// Creating a Workbook object and opening an Excel file using its file path
Workbook workbook1 = new Workbook(dataDir + "Book1.xlsx");
Console.WriteLine("Workbook opened using path successfully!");

How to Open an Excel File via a Stream

It is also simple to open an Excel file as a stream. To do so, use an overloaded version of the constructor that takes the Stream object that contains the file.

// For complete examples and data files, please go to https://github.com/aspose-cells/Aspose.Cells-for-.NET
// The path to the documents directory.
string dataDir = RunExamples.GetDataDir(System.Reflection.MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().DeclaringType);
// Opening through Stream
// Create a Stream object
FileStream fstream = new FileStream(dataDir + "Book2.xls", FileMode.Open);

// Creating a Workbook object, open the file from a Stream object
// That contains the content of file and it should support seeking
Workbook workbook2 = new Workbook(fstream);
Console.WriteLine("Workbook opened using stream successfully!");
fstream.Close();

How to Open a File with Data only

To open a file with data only, use the LoadOptions and LoadFilter classes to set the related attribute and options of the classes for the template file to be loaded.

// For complete examples and data files, please go to https://github.com/aspose-cells/Aspose.Cells-for-.NET
// The path to the documents directory.
string dataDir = RunExamples.GetDataDir(System.Reflection.MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().DeclaringType);
// Load only specific sheets with data and formulas
// Other objects, items etc. would be discarded

// Instantiate LoadOptions specified by the LoadFormat
LoadOptions loadOptions = new LoadOptions(LoadFormat.Xlsx);

// Set LoadFilter property to load only data & cell formatting
loadOptions.LoadFilter = new LoadFilter(LoadDataFilterOptions.CellData);
            

// Create a Workbook object and opening the file from its path
Workbook book = new Workbook(dataDir + "Book1.xlsx", loadOptions);
Console.WriteLine("File data imported successfully!");

How to Load Visible Sheets only

While loading a Workbook sometimes you may only need data in visible worksheets in a workbook. Aspose.Cells allows you to skip data in invisible worksheets while loading a workbook. To do this, create a custom function that inherits the LoadFilter class and pass its instance to LoadOptions.LoadFilter property.

// For complete examples and data files, please go to https://github.com/aspose-cells/Aspose.Cells-for-.NET
// The path to the documents directory.
string dataDir = RunExamples.GetDataDir(System.Reflection.MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().DeclaringType);
string sampleFile = "output.xlsx";
string samplePath = dataDir + sampleFile;

// Create a sample workbook
// and put some data in first cell of all 3 sheets
Workbook createWorkbook = new Workbook();
createWorkbook.Worksheets["Sheet1"].Cells["A1"].Value = "Aspose";
createWorkbook.Worksheets.Add("Sheet2").Cells["A1"].Value = "Aspose";
createWorkbook.Worksheets.Add("Sheet3").Cells["A1"].Value = "Aspose";
createWorkbook.Worksheets["Sheet3"].IsVisible = false;
createWorkbook.Save(samplePath);

// Load the sample workbook
           
LoadOptions loadOptions = new LoadOptions();
loadOptions.LoadFilter = new CustomLoad();

Workbook loadWorkbook = new Workbook(samplePath, loadOptions);
Console.WriteLine("Sheet1: A1: {0}", loadWorkbook.Worksheets["Sheet1"].Cells["A1"].Value);
Console.WriteLine("Sheet1: A2: {0}", loadWorkbook.Worksheets["Sheet2"].Cells["A1"].Value);
Console.WriteLine("Sheet1: A3: {0}", loadWorkbook.Worksheets["Sheet3"].Cells["A1"].Value);

Here is the implementation of the CustomnLoad class referenced in the above snippet.

// For complete examples and data files, please go to https://github.com/aspose-cells/Aspose.Cells-for-.NET
class CustomLoad : LoadFilter
{
    public override void StartSheet(Worksheet sheet)
    {
        if (sheet.IsVisible)
        {
            // Load everything from visible worksheet
            this.LoadDataFilterOptions = LoadDataFilterOptions.All;
        }
        else
        {
            // Load nothing
            this.LoadDataFilterOptions = LoadDataFilterOptions.Structure;
        }
    }
}

An exception will be thrown if you try to open non-native Excel files or other file formats (for example PPT/PPTX, DOC/DOCX, etc.) by Aspose.Cells.

There are fair chances that the Workbook constructor may throw System.OutOfMemoryException while loading large spreadsheets. This exception suggests that the available memory is insufficient to completely load the spreadsheet into the memory therefore the spreadsheet has to be loaded while enabling the Memory Preferences.