Microsoft Excel shines as a go-to platform for spreadsheets, storing various bits of information for use in various applications. While it is mostly for use in accounting, one might need to use Excel to access the files and information contained in them for databases or other software.

 

But what if you need to use them in a different project? What if you don’t have Microsoft Excel installed? This is where you need an alternative approach.

Let us look into ways to read Excel files.

1. Excel Library: Import and Initialize

In order to read Excel files, you will need the Excel Library in your project first. Once you accomplished that, proceed with creating a new project and add a command button to your C# form.

From here, you will need to initialize some things after importing the library. For instance, start with initializing the Excel application Object. Open the file and get the specified worksheet soon after.

Once you have the needed worksheet open and ready, it’s time to specify the ranges you need.

2. Specify Ranges

After importing the library and initializing the object, you would need to specify ranges in the Excel sheet. This allows the program to be able to read the entire content found in the Excel file.

To do this, you will need to use the “UsedRange” property of the xlWorkSheet. This approach should help you in getting information from specific cells.

3. Using Interop

Using Interop marshaling brings about data management in terms of how it passes in method arguments as well as return values segueing both managed and unmanaged memory during calls. Keep in mind that a majority of data types have general representations on both. Interop marshaler manages those types of data for you.

To use the Marshal class, you will need to import it into the project.

However, when you finish with referencing the Excel COM object, remember to set to null. This includes Cells, Sheets, and everything in the object.

4. Using C# and VB.NET

Aside from using C# alone while using Interop, you can also use the approach of using C# and VB.NET to read the Excel file. This is where the Gembox.Spreadsheet comes to play.

One thing of note with this approach is in how it uses the ExcelFile.Load method in reading the data.

5. Reading Excel Files Without Interop

Another method that you can use in reading Excel files is to not use Interop and instead do things manually. You can get this done through something like C&num. If you don’t know how to make C# read Excel files, check out this guide here.

Read Excel Files in Minutes

If you’re looking for a means to use Excel files without Microsoft Office, you can use a good bit of coding through C#. This way, you treat the file as a database where you can draw the information from the file itself.

You can use the file as a database, allowing you to access it for other programs. Now you can see that reading excel files is possible.

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