Write excel file no excel installed

Belias

Navision 4.01 SQL

hi everyone, i was wondering if it is possible to write an excel file even if excel is not installed in the client machine:
why? because a customer of us needs to export the budget from a TS where excel is not installed. Then he will eventually copy the file on his pc (where nav is not installed, but where excel is installed, instead) and then open/modify etc. its file.
At this moment, i don't know what excel version they have; i'll let you know asap.

The idea is to copy only the necessary dlls to manage excel automation on the TS, and then use nav automation (or excel buffer) to write and save the file (without phisically opening it, obviously )
Is this legal?Is this possible?
and less important (but you would spare me some extra research if you tell me) Do you know what dlls are needed?
thanks in advance

FDickschat

Can't tell whether that is possible or not (I would guess it is), but why don't you just generate a csv file? If the user downloads and opens it manually anyway there is no big difference.

Belias

why don't you just generate a csv file?

this is the very first question i asked them!
but they want to run "export budget to excel" and maybe other standard functions that uses the excel buffer!

RaniShoura

I don't believe that copying part of excel and working on every single assembly is the right solution, you can have a solution like http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb735940.aspx

kine

I have experience, that even you install the excel on terminal server and you cannot run it because it ends with error that you cannot use it on terminal server, the export from NAV ends correctly and you can use it for exporting and importing data.

ssingla

kine wrote:

I have experience, that even you install the excel on terminal server and you cannot run it because it ends with error that you cannot use it on terminal server

That is not entirely accurate. There are seprate license for Office for terminal server and it runs fine.
Further there is another advisory from MS
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/nav/archive/2011/01/18/microsoft-office-click-to-run-and-nav.aspx

kine

I know, I just want to emphasized that even you do not have the correct terminal service version of office, and you cannot use it interactively, you can use the installed excel to export/import data in NAV.

Belias

kine wrote:

I know, I just want to emphasized that even you do not have the correct terminal service version of office, and you cannot use it interactively, you can use the installed excel to export/import data in NAV.

Thanks a lot to everyone, this is just what i need to know, i think i'll try this solution and I'll let you know how does it work.
Have a nice day

marklynch

I am using Zet Excel platform
Try it
It helped me a lot !