How To Format Cell Data When You Are Creating an Excel File With an Active Server Pages Page (260239)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Excel 2000 Service Release 1 (SR-1)
  • Microsoft Excel 2000
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer (Programming) 4.0
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer (Programming) 4.01
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer (Programming) 4.01 SP1
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer (Programming) 4.01 SP2
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer (Programming) 5
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer (Programming) 5.01
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer (Programming) 5.5
  • Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows
This article was previously published under Q260239

SUMMARY

This article demonstrates how to format a field to preserve the leading digits (such as the "000" in "0001112") or a specific formula when you create an Excel file with an Active Server Pages (ASP) page.

MORE INFORMATION

If you set the 

Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.ms-excel"

in an ASP page, Excel will be launched to process the document and display it as an Excel spreadsheet. For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

199841 How To Display ASP Results Using Excel in IE with MIME Types

If the table field has a leading zero, then the zero (or zeros) will be stripped because Excel treats the field as a numeric value.

You can specify the cell as a string value to preserve the format in the ASP page. You can even specify the formula for calculation in your code.

The following page, Test.asp, demonstrates how you can do this: 
<%@ Language=VBScript %>
   <%
      'Change HTML header to specify Excel's MIME content type
      Response.Buffer = TRUE
      Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.ms-excel"
   %>
   <HTML>
   <BODY>
   <!-- Our table which will be translated into an Excel spreadsheet -->
   <TABLE WIDTH=75% BORDER=1 CELLSPACING=1 CELLPADDING=1>
   <TR>
      <TD>Book ID</TD>
      <TD>Book Title</TD>
      <TD>Price</TD>
      <TD>Shipping Fee</TD>
      <TD>Tax Rate</TD>
      <TD>Total Cost</TD>
   </TR>
   <TR>
      <TD>="0001"</TD>
      <TD>The Perfect Programming Book</TD>
      <TD>13.00</TD>
      <TD>5.00</TD>
      <TD>8.25%</TD>
      <TD>=Sum(c2:d2)*(1+E2)</TD>
   </TR>
   </TABLE>
   </BODY>
   </HTML>

REFERENCES

For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

247318 BUG: Word 2000 and Excel 2000 Do Not Redirect Correctly When Using Response.Redirect

264143 FIX: ASP Session Variables Empty When Office 2000 MIME Types Are Streamed with Internet Explorer

Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:7/1/2004
Keywords:kbhowto kbScript KB260239
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