Read Data From an Excel File (.xlsx) in ASP.NET

In this article, we will see how to display data from an Excel spreadsheet using ASP.NET. We will connect to a Microsoft Excel workbook using the OLEDB.NET data provider, extract data and then display the data in a GridView. Let us get started.

Step 1: Open Visual Studio > File > New >Website > Under Templates, click ASP.NET WebSite and choose either Visual C# as the language. Select a location and click Ok.

Step 2: We will create two excel sheets and add them to the project. One excel sheet will be created in Office 2003(.xls) and the other one using Office 2007(.xlsx). Add 4 columns called EID, EName, Age and City to the ‘Sheet1’. Also add some data into the columns. Once these excel files are created, add them to your project. To add them to the project, right click project > Add Existing Item > Add the two excel files.

Step 3: We will now create a web.config file if not already there to store the connection string information. Right click project > Add New Item > Web.config. Add the following entries to the file

      <connectionStrings>

            <add name="xls" connectionString="Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=Sample1.xls;Extended Properties=Excel 8.0"/>

            <add name="xlsx" connectionString="Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=Sample.xlsx;Extended Properties=Excel 12.0"/>

      connectionStrings>

Ensure that you mentioned the whole path of the excel file i.e.c:/MyProject/sample1.xls etc..

As you can observe, the connection string for xlsx (Excel 2007) contains Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0 as the provider. This is the new Access database engine OLE DB driver and is also capable of reading Excel 2003.

Step 4: Add a GridView to the Default.aspx page. We will extract  data from the excel file and bind it to the GridView.

Step 5: Let us now create a connection to the excel file and extract data from it. Before that add a reference to System.Data.OleDb;

Please mention the exact sheet name + $ in query as in the excel file.

C#

    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

    {

        string connString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["xls"].ConnectionString;

        // Create the connection object

        OleDbConnection oledbConn = new OleDbConnection(connString);

        try

        {

            // Open connection

            oledbConn.Open();

            // Create OleDbCommand object and select data from worksheet Sheet1

            OleDbCommand cmd = new OleDbCommand("SELECT * FROM [Sheet1$]", oledbConn);

            // Create new OleDbDataAdapter

            OleDbDataAdapter oleda = new OleDbDataAdapter();

            oleda.SelectCommand = cmd;

            // Create a DataSet which will hold the data extracted from the worksheet.

            DataSet ds = new DataSet();

            // Fill the DataSet from the data extracted from the worksheet.

            oleda.Fill(ds, "Employees");

            // Bind the data to the GridView

            GridView1.DataSource = ds.Tables[0].DefaultView;

            GridView1.DataBind();

        }

        catch

        {

        }

        finally

        {

            // Close connection

            oledbConn.Close();

        }     

    }

All set!! Run the application and see the data getting displayed in the GridView. If you want to target the Excel 2007 sheet, just change xls to xlsx in the ConfigurationManager.ConnectionString. 

Please let me know in case of you have any query in this article.