Laravel Excel/PHP Excel: Import, modify, download

Question

I'm struggeling with Laravel-Excel (Laravel Package of PHPExcel).

I'm not able to modify a file. My file has one workbook (called template). I want to load the document, modify it and let the user download it:

Excel::selectSheets('template') -> load($source, function($file)
{

}) -> download('xls');

Code above works so far. But I don't get how to fill cells. I don't want to export an eloquent model directly, I need to follow a certain structure. The Excel file was not created by me, I just need to fill it with data.

So how can I for example fill cell A2 with the firstname of the current user?

I search for something like

Excel::cell('A2') -> content = $user -> name;

This is just an example of what I want to achive, this is not working code!

Thanks, LuMa

Answer 1

Laravel-Excel runs off of PHPExcel, and you can run native PHPExcel methods on the objects exposed by Laravel-Excel.

From the docs, to get the cell: http://www.maatwebsite.nl/laravel-excel/docs/export#cells

\Excel::create('Document', function($excel) {
    $excel->sheet('Sheet', function($sheet) {
        $sheet->cell('A2', function($cell) {
            $cell->setValue('this is the cell value.');
        });
    });
})->download('xls');

And, here is a screenshot of the $cell instance showing what else can be called on it: