PHP - XLSX to HTML

Using PHP to convert XLSX to HTML

Zamzar offers a simple file conversion API to convert files from your applications with support for 100's of formats. Below we have listed an example to convert a XLSX file to HTML using PHP. We also support a variety of other programming languages.

If you have any questions check out our comprehensive FAQ which contains further information on how to use the API.

PHP Code Sample

Our example code assumes that you're using PHP 5.3 or newer.

To convert your first file with the Zamzar API, send an HTTP request to POST https://sandbox.zamzar.com/v1/jobs containing your source file, and the your desired target format. If the source file is on the web or in S3, send us the URL: the source file doesn't need to hit your servers.

<?php

$endpoint = "https://sandbox.zamzar.com/v1/jobs";
$apiKey = "GiVUYsF4A8ssq93FR48H";
$sourceFile = "https://s3.amazonaws.com/zamzar-samples/sample.xlsx";
$targetFormat = "HTML";

$postData = array(
  "source_file" => $sourceFile,
  "target_format" => $targetFormat
);

$ch = curl_init(); // Init curl
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $endpoint); // API endpoint
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, 'POST');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $postData);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true); // Return response as a string
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, $apiKey . ":"); // Set the API key as the basic auth username
$body = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

$response = json_decode($body, true);

echo "Response:\n---------\n";
print_r($response);

Your source file is now being converted. Send an HTTP request to GET https://sandbox.zamzar.com/v1/jobs/$jobId to check its progress. The response will also give you details about your converted file.

<?php

$jobID = 15;
$endpoint = "https://sandbox.zamzar.com/v1/jobs/$jobID";
$apiKey = "GiVUYsF4A8ssq93FR48H";

$ch = curl_init(); // Init curl
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $endpoint); // API endpoint
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true); // Return response as a string
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, $apiKey . ":"); // Set the API key as the basic auth username
$body = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

$job = json_decode($body, true);

echo "Job:\n----\n";
print_r($job);

Once the status of your job is successful, your converted file is ready to download. Send an HTTP request to GET https://sandbox.zamzar.com/v1/file/$fileId/content to download it. We store your files for a day by default, and for longer on our paid plans.

<?php

$fileID = 3;
$localFilename = "converted.html";;
$endpoint = "https://sandbox.zamzar.com/v1/files/$fileID/content";
$apiKey = "GiVUYsF4A8ssq93FR48H";

$ch = curl_init(); // Init curl
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $endpoint); // API endpoint
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, $apiKey . ":"); // Set the API key as the basic auth username
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, TRUE);

$fh = fopen($localFilename, "wb");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FILE, $fh);

$body = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

echo "File downloaded\n";

If you like what you see and want to start converting files under your own API account then please click the "Get Started Now" button to signup for your own API account. Please feel free to get in touch with us should you have any specific questions or refer to our extensive docs and FAQ for further information.

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  • S3 Integration

    Automatically import and export to S3 with 2 lines of code.

  • Simple Pricing

    Fixed price monthly accounts which come bundled with conversion credits.

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    File conversion experts, having converted 350 million files over the past decade.

Using XLSX with PHP

Reading Excel files with PHP is not straight-forward but there's an excellent open source solution (licensed under LGPL version 3) known as PHP Spreadsheet. Perhaps unlike other libraries the best way to use this is to convert the excel sheets into PHP arrays and then use the data in PHP. There are three easy to follow steps that need to be followed - from loading the file in, to defining the reader options to then being able to load and display the data.

Another option is to use the open source, community driven PEAR package for generating Excel Spreadsheets.

A third alternative is using the Zamzar API. The API will allow you to manipulate your Excel file seamlessly and with the same quality as the native Microsoft Office toolset. There's no need to worry about hosting, and with S3 Integration you can automatically import and export to S3 with just two lines of code. There's a dedicated support team in place who can provide assistance at any stage of the process plus there's an extensive documentation library that should cover any issues/FAQ's.

Resources:
Related StackOverflow Questions:

Using HTML with PHP

There are a number of open source tools for creation of HTML files from a variety of different source file formats. Often the rendering of the outputted HTML file can be very heavyweight or difficult to edit, so it is worth reviewing the various different programs on offer to see which suits your needs. If you have a fairly simple source format such as a Microsoft Word document that is not too complex then you could consider using a tool such as Unoconv which converts between formats that OpenOffice supports and can output to HTML, the results however can be a little mixed if you have more complex documents.

Another option is to use another open source tool - Poppler. A number of developers have created PHP libraries that utilise Poppler for converting from PDF into HTML, so one option would be to convert the file into PDF then use a Poppler PHP library to convert that resulting PDF file into HTML - see PDF to HTML PHP Library using Poppler. Poppler is known to have some rendering issues, so it is certainly worth testing on a wide variety of files before deciding on this as a solution.

If you need a commercial solution with the benefit of the support that comes with that you could consider the Zamzar API. With a dedicated team on hand to help, code examples in many of the major languages including PHP, simple low cost conversion credits and support for direct import and export to S3, it may cover most of the use cases you require. Feel free to reach out to our support team with any questions or dip into the getting started guide in our docs. You can see a full list of supported input formats here.

Resources:
Related StackOverflow Questions: