I am using PHPExcel to read an excel template, populate the data, and ask the user to download the file.
generate_excel.php
$objPHPExcel = PHPExcel_IOFactory::load("./template.xlsx");
//populate data ...
header('Content-Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="01simple.xlsx"');
header('Cache-Control: max-age=0');
$objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objPHPExcel, 'Excel2007');
$objWriter->save('php://output');
When I open generate_excel.php directly from the browser, the result file is downloaded. But if I make an ajax call to the generate_excel.php, I don’t get the download prompt. Using chrome developer tools, I can see from the Network tab that the ajax call was successfully completed and a bunch of random characters is seen in the response data. I’m assuming that is the excel object.
Does anyone know how I can achieve the download excel feature using ajax? I don’t want to refresh the page. When the user clicks on the “export” button, there should be an ajax call to the php file and prompt the user to download.
Thanks!
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Answer
Found a way to do this, although I’m not sure if this is an ideal approach.
I added a hidden iframe in the page. When the ajax call returns, it returns the url of the created data. I used javascript to redirect the iframe to that url which automatically triggers the download action.