Forum Discussion

tk-wf's avatar
tk-wf
New Contributor
3 years ago

EXCEL Formatter: Is it possible to write formulas to cells?

We are trying to write formula strings as values to Excel cells, but when the file is opened all that appears are the formula strings and not the evaluated values.

We have tried prepending an ‘=’ to the strings but that just results in the string with an ‘=’ char prepended. Hitting ‘F2’ in a cell will immediately evaluate the cell, but that is not workable for end users.

If we modify the cell in-place with the ‘=’ character then the formula evaluates.

Any help/guidance is appreciated.

Thanks,
TK

excel

3 Replies

  • darshthakkar's avatar
    darshthakkar
    Valued Contributor
    3 years ago

    Please check this out, might be helpful to you @tk-wf

    • tk-wf's avatar
      tk-wf
      New Contributor
      3 years ago

      Thanks @darshthakkar that is somewhat helpful.

      The downside is that for us it misses the requirement of writing multiple sheets to a workbook (sans manual intervention).

      It is a bit surprising that the Excel Formatter(s) cannot produce a field recognized as a Formula, though not sure if the fault lies in the SL implementation, a Java Component, or on the Excel side.

      As a result of this, we are reevaluating the requirement to have the Formulas in the output, which might be the better thing anyway.

      • darshthakkar's avatar
        darshthakkar
        Valued Contributor
        3 years ago

        Yes, I agree to your workaround @tk-wf.
        We might be implementing it in an incorrect way on SL and I still haven’t achieved formulas on excel.