Excel is the perfect way to export any data from a website in rows or a column format since rows and columns are an easy and straightforward method to display anything.

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Hence, if a website contains a lot of data on multiple webpages and you’re looking for the best way to extract those data, organize and manage them in a single place, then jQuery and an Excel sheet will make all these things easy for you.

This post goes through numerous details and will go a long way in helping you to better understand the relationship between an Excel spreadsheet and jQuery more thoroughly. Read on.

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Is Excel jQuery?

No, Excel is not jQuery. They are two different tools that have different functions.

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What is Excel?

Excel is a software program created by Microsoft that uses spreadsheets to organize data and numbers with formulas and functions. Excel is a helpful and powerful spreadsheet program used for managing data (data entry, documentation, and data management) and performing analysis (financial, data, etc.)

Excel contains several rows and columns (1, 048, 576 rows and 16, 384 columns), where each intersection of a column and a row is a “cell.” Each cell contains one point of data or one piece of information. When data is organized in this manner, it would be easier to find information and automatically infer information from any altered data.

What is jQuery?

jQuery is an open-source and free JavaScript (JS) library. It’s a small, fast, and feature-rich JS library. What jQuery does is to make HTML docs traversal and manipulation, animation, event handling, and Ajax very simple using an easy-to-use API that functions on all browsers.

jQuery’s syntax can make it very easy to parse a document, choose DOM elements, handle events, create animations, and develop Ajax applications. For instance, you can use jQuery to find an element or query in a doc with a specific property. jQuery can also be used to change one or more of its attributes or make it responsive to an event.

In summary, jQuery’s essence is to make it very easy to use JS on websites for the following:

∎ HTML/DOM manipulation

∎ CSS manipulation

∎ HTML event methods

∎ Effects and animations

∎ AJAX, and 

∎ Utilities

So, how do Excel and jQuery interrelate?

jQuery makes it possible and easier to export data from websites in rows and columns format on Excel spreadsheets. The first step in scraping data from websites and organizing them in Excel is to grab the full page HTML using a jQuery. 

With jQuery, you can easily convert or export HTML tables and JSON data to Excel from the website. jQuery also allows you to embed a compatible Excel spreadsheet on your website.

With everything said about jQuery and Excel above, how does jQuery make data exportation to Excel possible?

jQuery Excel Export

As stated above, jQuery is an excellent tool to export data and an HTML table from the web to an Excel spreadsheet. 

Sometimes, in your daily tasks, you need to export some data from the web to a file format, including PDF, Excel, or CSV. With a few jQuery lines, you can extract web data to Excel and even auto-download the data.

If you’re a seasoned programmer or coder, writing script wouldn’t be a big deal for you. You can easily get started with these codes/functions to export any data to Excel:

function exportToExcel() {

        var tab_text = “

“;

“;

        var tableData = $(‘#student-detail’).DataTable().rows().data();

        for (var i = 0; i < tableData.length; i++) {

            rows += ‘

‘

‘ + tableData[i].value1 + ‘

‘ + tableData[i].value2 + ‘

‘ + tableData[i].value3 + ‘

‘ + tableData[i].value4 + ‘

‘ + tableData[i].value5 + ‘

‘ + tableData[i].value6 + ‘

‘ + tableData[i].value7 + ‘

‘ + tableData[i].value8 + ‘

‘ + tableData[i].value9 + ‘

‘ + tableData[i].value10 + ‘

‘;

        }

        tab_text += rows;

        var data_type = ‘data:application/vnd.ms-excel;base64,’,

            template = ‘

{table}

‘,

            base64 = function (s) {

                return window.btoa(unescape(encodeURIComponent(s)))

            },

            format = function (s, c) {

                return s.replace(/{(\w+)}/g, function (m, p) {

                    return c[p];

                })

            }

        var ctx = {

            worksheet: “Sheet 1” || ‘Worksheet’,

            table: tab_text

        }

document.getElementById(“dlink”).href = data_type + base64(format(template, ctx));

        document.getElementById(“dlink”).download = “Output.xls”;

document.getElementById(“dlink”).traget = “_blank”;

document.getElementById(“dlink”).click();

    }

This can also help

function exportToExcel(){

var htmls = “”;

            var uri = ‘data:application/vnd.ms-excel;base64,’;

            var template = ‘

{table}

‘; 

            var base64 = function(s) {

                return window.btoa(unescape(encodeURIComponent(s)))

            };

            var format = function(s, c) {

                return s.replace(/{(\w+)}/g, function(m, p) {

                    return c[p];

                })

            };

            htmls = “YOUR HTML AS TABLE”

            var ctx = {

                worksheet : ‘Worksheet’,

                table : htmls

            }

            var link = document.createElement(“a”);

            link.download = “export.xls”;

            link.href = uri + base64(format(template, ctx));

            link.click();

}

To export any html table to CSV, use the following function. This function enables you to import data from Excel to html table using jQuery:

function exportTableToCSV($table, filename) {

            var $rows = $table.find(‘tr:has(td),tr:has(th)’),

                // Temporary delimiter characters unlikely to be typed by keyboard

            // This is to avoid accidentally splitting the actual contents

            tmpColDelim = String.fromCharCode(11), // vertical tab character

            tmpRowDelim = String.fromCharCode(0), // null character

                // actual delimiter characters for CSV format

            colDelim = ‘”,”‘,

            rowDelim = ‘”\r\n”‘,

                // Grab text from table into CSV formatted string

            csv = ‘”‘ + $rows.map(function (i, row) {

                var $row = jQuery(row), $cols = $row.find(‘td,th’);

                    return $cols.map(function (j, col) {

                    var $col = jQuery(col), text = $col.text();

                        return text.replace(/”/g, ‘””‘); // escape double quotes

                    }).get().join(tmpColDelim);

                }).get().join(tmpRowDelim)

.split(tmpRowDelim).join(rowDelim)

.split(tmpColDelim).join(colDelim) + ‘”‘,

                // Data URI

            csvData = ‘data:application/csv;charset=utf-8,’ + encodeURIComponent(csv);

                        console.log(csv);

                      if (window.navigator.msSaveBlob) { // IE 10+

            //alert(‘IE’ + csv);

            window.navigator.msSaveOrOpenBlob(new Blob([csv], {type: “text/plain;charset=utf-8;”}), “csvname.csv”)

          } 

          else {

            jQuery(this).attr({ ‘download’: filename, ‘href’: csvData, ‘target’: ‘_blank’ }); 

          }

    }

This is only the function and needs a trigger to call this function, so the following click event function can be used:

jQuery(“.export_csv”).on(‘click’, function (event) { 

        exportTableToCSV.apply(this, [jQuery(‘.dataTable’), ‘export.csv’]);

        window.location.reload();

    });

jQuery Plugin to Read Excel File

If you’re not a coder or you want to get the extraction done faster, there are lots of plugins (jQuery Export to Excel Plugins) that can easily export data to an excel sheet from websites. 

You can use the three most popular jQuery Export to Excel plugins to extract data from Excel websites. By adding one of these to your website, you will easily export data to an excel sheet. These plugins are also entirely free and fully customizable.

The plugins also keep your website’s data in a tabular or arranged form, which allows for easy navigation and is also useful because they include features that can be used to select, sort, and filter data in a simple manner. They can also export any data, including JSON, an array, or a CSV file to excel.

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1. jQuery Table2Excel Plugin

jQuery Table2Excel is the most preferred export to Excel plugin, capable of transmitting the HTML tabled documents to excel spreadsheets. The plugin is integrated with .xls extension, which allows you to open the spreadsheet file on your web pages. 

The plugin is lightweight and enables you to embed a spreadsheet on your website, which is compatible with Excel. It enables you to load data to the Excel sheet from an HTML table or a CSV file. You can apply the plugin to the HTML table element on your HTML page and get the Excel file as the table.

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Using this extension, you will get a warning message about the contents that are not appropriately exported into the excel sheet. You can make use of this table2excel plugin as follows even if you have basic coding knowledge:

You can download the table2excel plugin on your computer. It’s a .zip file. Extract the files and inside, look for the src folder. It has the jquery.table2excel.js file. You can save the file in the project root directory (or wherever you want to access it from).

1. Include the jQuery library and the jQuery table2excel plugin in the Html document:

2. Create an ‘Export’ button for exporting table data to an Excel file manually: (Optional)

Export

3. You thencall the plugin on the table and pass these options:

$(“button”).click(function(){

$(“#table2excel”).table2excel({

    // exclude CSS class

   exclude:”.noExl”,

   name:”Worksheet Name”,

   filename:”SomeFile”,//do not include extension

   fileext:”.xls” // file extension

  });

});

4. Then you can add the CSS class ‘noExl’ to any “tr” tags to ignore the specified table data while exporting.

#

Column heading

Column heading

Column heading

5. Determine whether to preserve the background and font colors. Default: false.

$(“#table2excel”).table2excel({

  exclude:”.noExl”,

  name:”Worksheet Name”,

  filename:”SomeFile”,

  fileext:”.xls”,

  preserveColors:true

});

6. Determine whether to exclude images, links, and input fields. Default: true.

$(“#table2excel”).table2excel({

  exclude:”.noExl”,

  name:”Worksheet Name”,

  filename:”SomeFile”,

  fileext:”.xls”,

  exclude_img:true,

  exclude_links:true,

  exclude_inputs:true

});

jQuery-Table2Excel is free to use and can be gotten anytime from Git Hubs’ official site from various developers.

The table2excel plugin also has a feature to exclude cells that contain a specified class, i.e., noExport class.

Syntax for noExport:

$(document).ready(function() {

    $(“#table-id”).table2excel({

        exclude: “.noExport”,

        filename: “name-of-the-file”,

    });

});

Example code for excluding some specified cells:

Export 

2. SlickGrid Export to Excel jQuery Plugin

This plugin can be used to move your entire data into an Excel sheet. It provides users with the ability to give web application a spreadsheet-like interface, such as the MS Excel sheet style.

SlickGrid Export to Excel jQuery Plugin comes with all the necessary files inside its dist (distributable and directory where files are stored) in your application and transfers this data into an Excel file.

This plugin contains underscore and jQuery.slickgrid.export. Excel js files in the HTML web page, making it very fast to move your data into an Excel sheet.

This plugin will also automatically include base64 content (i.e., generic data) in its href (Hypertext REFerence) attribute that identifies the sections in a document. It combines with various other plugins such as JsZip, which is used to create, read, and edit content. 

SWFObject that embeds Adobe Flash content into Web pages and other things. This plugin gives you an option to format the data anytime whenever required.

3. JQuery Export to Excel Plugin

Using the JsExport plugin, you can export your HTML table and grid-view data to an Excel file and even on the doc, XML and PPT. You can add many colors on the header section, alternate row color, text-align, font size, etc. on your spreadsheet section.

This plugin will allow you the option to add a grid view or HTML table inside a div to work correctly on your website. It provides a section of data filter to sort the data automatically before exporting the contents to Excel. JsExport is compatible with every browser that supports HTML5.

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4. TableHTMLExport Plugin

This plugin is very lightweight and helps to move the HTML table into an Excel file. It converts table data into an Excel sheet and forces the browser to download the generated file. Although this plugin can also export HTML tables into TXT, JSON, or PDF files, we will only focus on Excel exportation using this jQuery plugin.

How to use the jQuery plugin to export an html table to Excel:

1. First create table export functionality by loading jQuery JavaScript library and TableHTMLExport plugin JS file into your HTML document.

2. Add a unique id (or class) to your HTML table that you want to export into Excel sheet.

3. Now, create a button that will be used to export your HTML table into Excel .csv file.

Export to Excel

Also Load Font Awesome if not already done.

4. Style your HTML table and export button with CSS (Optional).

table {

  border-collapse: collapse;

  width: 100%;

}

th, td {

  text-align: left;

  padding: 8px;

}

tr:nth-child(even){background-color: #f2f2f2}

th, .export-btn {

  background-color: #81BD5D;

  color: #fff;

}

.export-btn{

  padding: 10px 16px;

  border: 0;

  outline: 0;

  font-size: 18px;

  border-radius: 4px;

  margin: 10px auto;

  cursor: pointer;

 }

.export-btn:hover{

  opacity: 0.9;

 }

5. Finally, initialize the plugin in the jQuery document ready function.

Tip: Use the click event to export file on button click. Otherwise file will be downloaded on body load.

$(document).ready(function(){

$(“.export-btn”).click(function(){  

     $(“#tableCompany”).tableHTMLExport({

      type:’csv’,

filename:’codehim-html-table-to-excel.csv’,

    });

  });

});

jExcel jQuery

jExcel CE is a very light, completely free, jQuery plugin to embed a spreadsheet compatible with Excel on your website or application. With jExcel, you can create an Excel-like table from a JS array, JSON, or even a CSV file. 

The jExcel is a JS software and jQuery plugin designed to simplify data manipulations in web-based apps. This plugin was created as an easy JS data input tool for Excel users. It’s a light alternative to the Handsontable JS spreadsheet and MS Excel.

If you are a developer and keen on Microsoft Excel, Handsontable, Datagrid, or you wish to give users a new user-friendly experience, you have come to the right place. The jExcel JS spreadsheet data can be manipulated with CSV, JSON, or simple arrays. This makes it easy to integrate jExcel to any other app. For instance, shortcuts can be easily copied and pasted to transfer data from Excel to jExcel spreadsheets and vice versa. 

You can easily integrate third-party jQuery plugins to create your custom columns, custom editors, and customize new features to your clients. jExcel has plenty of excellent features such as key-value dropdown, CSV loading/exporting, multiple spreadsheets, etc.

Below, are several benefits of using jExcel:

Using a few simple steps, you can integrate jExcel into your application. So, you can quickly enjoy all the advantages of this excellent jQuery plugin.

∎ It makes for robust, user-friendly applications and web interfaces

∎ You can easily manage complicated data inputs in a manner that users are familiar with

∎ It improves your clients’ software experience

∎ Create rich CRUDS and beautiful UI

∎ It is compatible with excel: users can move data around with standard copy and paste shortcuts.

∎ It has easy customizations with easy jQuery plugin integrations

∎ Lean, fast, and simple to use

So, how do you embed a jExcel jQuery plugin into your website?

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jExcel Example

A very simple jExcel example to integrate the jExcel jQuery plugin in your website to create your first online spreadsheet experience:

jExcel installation code

∎ For full examples on how to handle simple, advanced, autocomplete and conditional dropdowns., click here.

∎ To insert, remove, and move columns and rows, click here.

∎ For overflow table and scrolling, click here.

∎ To create a custom table design like a bootstrap-like spreadsheet table, click here.

∎ For table styling, click here.

∎ To manage a table cell comment, click here.

∎ To manage the table Meta information, click here.

∎ To load an autocomplete dropdown, click here. 

∎ To load remote data from an external CSV file into a jExcel grid or table, click here.

∎ To handle currency type and masking number, click here.

∎ To handle a calendar with date and date/time picker, click here.

∎ To sort your jExcel spreadsheet, click here.

∎ To create custom column types based on a third-party jQuery plugin, click here.

∎ To create and handle events on your spreadsheet, click here.

∎ To set a read-only column or multiple custom cells, click here.

∎ To create multiple table instances on the same page, click here.

∎ To change the text wrap behavior in a jExcel column, click here.

∎ To create a jExcel table with nested headers, click here. 

∎ To add images on your jExcel sheet cells, click here.

You can check out more advanced jExcel examples here. You can download the code above from GitHub official website or a zip file here.

Is jQuery a Useful JS Library for Beginners to Learn?

Yes, jQuery is a handy JS library that all beginners should learn. JQuery should be the very first JS library for all developers to learn. This is because:

∎ jQuery offers lots of fast solutions to common JS challenges that do not involve the DOM. For instance, jQuery can be quickly and amazingly used to sort and filter arrays and data objects.

∎ jQuery’s syntax for making AJAX calls is so simple than using the native “XmlHttpRequest.”

∎ jQuery even works on the server-side with Node.  

∎ There are several libraries available that have jQuery as a dependency.

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Conclusion

That said, many firms and organizations now have apps that use jQuery in their code that needs to be maintained. For that reason alone, it is recommended for you to supplement your JavaScript knowledge with jQuery to help you on the job.

So, how can you start learning jQuery?

Before you begin, it’s best to ensure that you:

∎ Posess a sound understanding of HTML and CSS;

∎ Can set-up a simple website and know what CSS selectors are, such as ids and classes.

∎ Have a fundamental knowledge of JavaScript, especially variables and data types.

You can learn jQuery at Boti. We provide a wealth of information toto enable developers to quickly get up-to-speed with the library.