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Request a Feature Report a Bug
Declined
Last Updated: 04 Jun 2020 10:39 by ADMIN
Rodney Foley
Created on: 12 Feb 2019 18:19
Category: Grid
Type: Feature Request
1
ADD: RadGrid ExcelML format to support Multi-Column headers feature
ExcelML currently does not support multiple column headers (aka ColumnGroups). This was first requested in the forms back in 2012 and no feature request was created for ExcelML. It is important that ExcelML support ColumnGroups as Excel does support this functionality.
2 comments
ADMIN
Peter Milchev
Posted on: 04 Jun 2020 10:39

Hello Rodney,

We had an internal discussion about this issue and I will share the reasons behind why we decided to Decline this and what are the alternatives for such a scenario:

We have reviewed over 750 support threads related to columns and ExcelML since 2008 and the multicolumn header feature was not requested for the ExcelML format except in this Feature Request. This feature request only has your vote which we added on your behalf. The MultiColumn header export was requested for the other formats and is implemented for them.

On the technical side, the ExcelML format is different from the other formats as it exports only the data passed to the Grid which is thoroughly and visually explained in this forum post:

The Html, Biff, and Xlsx formats all support the multicolumn headers export to Excel. 

Another interesting fact from recent days is that Office 2007 has reached end of extended support.

We encourage all people that need the MultiColumn headers and use the .xls format to use the HTML-based export that supports this functionality. The warning message that might appear when opening such an HTML based exported file is an official Microsoft bug and while it may be annoying for some of the end-users, it is harmless and can be ignored.

As the perfect scenario, we recommend using the new OpenXML format of Excel files by setting the Excel-Format property to Xlsx in the ExportSettings of RadGrid.

On top of that, the resulted workbook can be obtained from the Grid and handled by the DocumentProcessingLibrary. That would allow leveraging the rich API and functionality of the DocumentProcessingLibrary for further customization.

Regards,
Peter Milchev
Progress Telerik

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Rodney Foley
Posted on: 29 May 2020 16:19
That took a bit of time to go from Pending Review to Unplanned, and it does so without stating why you don't plan to implement a feature that has been requested for 8 years.  Are you going to remote ExcelML support? If so that is one way to solve the problem, but if not you need to provide a way to export your grid data to Excel that will retain its formatting. Something Excel supports just fine just you do not.

Please can you explain why you are not going to do anything about this issue?  From a customer POV this is a BUG in the ExcelML export as it doesn't not work as the customer expects it to, since it is an EXCEL export it should support the most common features of Excel.
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