Guys, are you ready? Before we dive into its details: I want you to get an essence of the public release. I am giving you little preview of the new features and other enhancements available in the release for quick reference. I guess you know the valuable usage of MS Excel’s auto-fit rows/cols feature. Yet, you are one step ahead and perform the operation on merged cells by Aspose.Cells. While working in MS Excel IDE, you might not dislike formatted Tables but sometimes you need to convert to raw range. Here comes the library to accomplish these tasks via the APIs. Some of you might also like importing from JSON. So let’s not wait another moment to review the release notes. Do you want to know all exciting features and other enhancements? Here you go.

Autofit Rows for Merged Cells

Autofitting rows is a very common operation which you perform while working with the Excel files. This feature was already there in Aspose.Cells API however many people asked for more control over this operation. To fulfill this requirement we have provided AutoFitMergedCellsType enumerator which contains the following options:

• None: Ignore merged cells.
• FirstLine: Only expands the height of the first row.
• LastLine: Only expands the height of the last row.
• EachLine: Expands the height of each row.

Here is a snapshot of this feature where the effect of one of the options EechLine is shown.

You can test this feature using following sample code.

For more details on this topic please visit here.

Convert table to range with Options

Conversion of the table to a range was available earlier. However what if you want to control the formatting of destination range like formatting only the partial output. The good news is that this feature is available now and you don’t need to write extra code to format the output range. We have introduced a new class TableToRangeOptions where LastRow property is available to set the last row to which formatting is copied from the source table. Here is the view of a sample table and converted range which is formatted up to row 5.

Here is a sample code which is used to create the above range.

For detailed information on conversions follow this link.

Import data from JSON

As you know that JavaScript Object Notation is a common data interchange format which is quite lightweight and can be read by human and machines easily. Now, for example, you get data from some Web API in JSON format and need it to be imported into some Excel file, then Aspose.Cells is there to provide this facility.

JSONUtility class is introduced by Aspose.Cells for this purpose having ImportData method that not only imports data but also performs different conversions and formatting using the JsonLayoutOptions object during the import process. You may try this exciting feature by following article Importing Data from JSON. Here is a sample code to use this feature:

You can see that result is cool as fully formatted Excel file is created without using any extra code to parse the JSON string from any source like Web API. Isn’t it? For example, if you get the following string from Web API, then output Excel file is shown in the image below:

[{“color”: “red”,”value”: “#f00”},{“color”: “green”,”value”: “#0f0”},{“color”: “blue”,”value”: “#00f”},{“color”: “cyan”,”value”: “#0ff”},{“color”: “magenta”,”value”: “#f0f”},{“color”: “yellow”,”value”:”#ff0″},{“color”: “black”,”value”: “#000”}]

Get Range with External Links

Microsoft Excel supports external links for fetching data from different sources. We have provided the option to retrieve these links from the Excel file using Name.GetRefferedAreas method. This method returns ReferredArea which has many useful properties as follows:

• EndColumn: The end column of the area
• EndRow: The end row of the area
• ExternalFileName: Get the external file name if this is an external reference
• IsArea: Indicates whether this is an area
• IsExternalLink: Indicates whether this is an external link
• SheetName: Indicates which sheet this reference is in
• StartColumn: The start column of the area
• StartRow: The start row of the area

You may find details on how to get range with external links for your reference. In the following example, an external file having named range “Names” is linked with the Excel file. We can access this named range in the linked file and display its properties mentioned above.

Keep separators for blank rows during spreadsheet to CSV

Many times you convert the Excel sheets to CSV for using it in some other environment or applications. You may need to decide yourself about the separators for blank rows in the spreadsheet while exporting it to CSV. For example, there is a blank row in the source spreadsheet and you want either a blank row in the CSV or have a row with predefined separators. We have provided this feature now and you can get details about this feature here.

For better understanding, have a look at the following image which shows the result of this feature.

Following is a sample code which demonstrates this new feature.

To use these useful features and avail other enhancements, I recommend you to try the release Aspose.Cells for .NET v19.3. And, if you have more time, browse Developers’ Guide for your complete reference on what you can deliver using the rendering extension API. You are always welcome to share your review, concerns or feedback on forums.

Big smiles as I am here to announce the release of the latest version of Aspose.Cells for Java. In this post, I am going to give you a glimpse of all the new exciting features for best utilization of the API along with the improvements and fixes. Links to the relevant articles and resources will also be available for quick reference. So let us start reviewing what is there in this release.

Import data from JSON

As you know that JavaScript Object Notation is a common data interchange format which is quite lightweight and can be read by human and machines easily. Now, for example, you get data from some Web API in JSON format and need it to be imported into some Excel file, then Aspose.Cells is there to provide this facility.

JSONUtility class is introduced by Aspose.Cells for this purpose having ImportData method that not only imports data but also performs different conversions and formatting using the JsonLayoutOptions object during the import process. You may try this exciting feature by following article Importing Data from JSON. Here is a sample code to use this feature:

You can see that result is cool as fully formatted Excel file is created without using any extra code to parse the JSON string from any source like Web API. Isn’t it? For example, if you get the following string from Web API, then output Excel file is shown in the image below:

[{“color”: “red”,”value”: “#f00”},{“color”: “green”,”value”: “#0f0”},{“color”: “blue”,”value”: “#00f”},{“color”: “cyan”,”value”: “#0ff”},{“color”: “magenta”,”value”: “#f0f”},{“color”: “yellow”,”value”:”#ff0″},{“color”: “black”,”value”: “#000”}]

Convert table to range with Options

Conversion of the table to a range was available earlier. However what if you want to control the formatting of destination range like formatting only the partial output. The good news is that this feature is available now and you don’t need to write extra code to format the output range. We have introduced a new class TableToRangeOptions where LastRow property is available to set the last row to which formatting is copied from the source table. Here is the view of a sample table and converted range which is formatted up to row 5.

Here is a sample code which is used to create the above range.

For detailed information on conversions follow this link.

Get Range with External Links

Microsoft Excel supports external links for fetching data from different sources. We have provided the option to retrieve these links from the Excel file using Name.GetRefferedAreas method. This method returns ReferredArea which has many useful properties as follows:

• EndColumn: The end column of the area
• EndRow: The end row of the area
• ExternalFileName: Get the external file name if this is an external reference
• IsArea: Indicates whether this is an area
• IsExternalLink: Indicates whether this is an external link
• SheetName: Indicates which sheet this reference is in
• StartColumn: The start column of the area
• StartRow: The start row of the area

In the following example, an external file having named range “Names” is linked with the Excel file. We can access this named range in the linked file and display its properties mentioned above.

Keep separators for blank rows during spreadsheet to CSV

Many times you convert the Excel sheets to CSV for using it in some other environment or applications. You may need to decide yourself about the separators for blank rows in the spreadsheet while exporting it to CSV. For example, there is a blank row in the source spreadsheet and you want either a blank row in the CSV or have a row with predefined separators. We have provided this feature now and you can get details about this feature here.

For better understanding, have a look at the following image which shows the result of this feature.

Following is a sample code which demonstrates this new feature.

Autofit Rows for Merged Cells

Autofitting rows is a very common operation which you perform while working with the Excel files. This feature was already there in Aspose.Cells API however many people asked for more control over this operation. To fulfill this requirement we have provided AutoFitMergedCellsType enumerator which contains the following options:

• NONE: Ignore merged cells.
• FIRST_LINE: Only expands the height of the first row.
• LAST_LINE: Only expands the height of the last row.
• EACH_LINE: Expands the height of each row.

Here is a snapshot of this feature where the effect of one of the options EACH_LINE is shown.

You can test this feature using following sample code.

For more details on this topic please visit here.

Other enhancements in this release

• Text extraction from cells using Cell.getDisplayStringValue() was returning different results for Ricty Diminished font. The new version returns appropriate string now.
• Text alignment in the resultant PDF is made more accurate.
• In some cases, the black text color was changed to red in the converted HTML, that is no more an issue.
• Scatter chart and 2D bubble chart will be rendered to PDF without any problem.
• Range.Copy() will copy the font settings and other objects now onward.
• Workbook.hasExernalLinks() will return proper results for DDE links.

Note: You may download this project from GitHub to get the template files and running examples used in this blog post.

At least Windows users won’t deny the advantages of XPS (The XML Paper Specification) format. Forget if it is a paginated fixed-layout format that retains the look and feel of your documents. But, being a shape of electronic paper, the XPS format provides a better way in which you can easily create, share and print digital documents. And, above all, XPS documents can be neither manipulated nor edited easily and can only be viewed on computer systems that have an XPS Viewer installed.

Render your report definition file to XPS

While working in report server to transform report data and layout information into XPS, you might think why SQL Server Reporting Services did not include this format as one of their built-in rendering extension. No worries, Aspose.Cells for Reporting Services is here to cope with it and now it supports the format. Here is a document to check complete list of supported document formats.

To use this useful feature and avail other enhancements, I would recommend you to try the release Aspose.Cells for Reporting Services 19.3. And, if you have a little time, browse Developers’ Guide for your complete reference on what you can deliver using the rendering extension API. You are always welcome to share your review, concerns or feedback on forums.

Wait is over, guys! The latest version of Aspose.Cells for Java is here. I’m going to walk you through all the exciting features, improvements, and fixes. Don’t worry, you’ll know where you can find everything related to this latest update in a bit, but for now, let’s talk about this new version and see what the team has been up to! Shall we?

Microsoft Excel supports a feature to insert a row using one of the three different options. The objective of these options is to adopt settings from other rows. These three options include the following:

• Format Same as Above (copy formatting from the above row)
• Format Same as Below (copy formatting from the row below)
• Clear Formatting (add new row but without any formatting)

You can also see these three options in the following screenshot:

The good news is, using Aspose.Cells for Java 19.2 and onwards, you can use this feature in your code as well. You can programmatically create new rows with specified formatting option. Now, you must be wandering, hmm, how exactly do I do that in my Java application? Here is a code sample for you to do just that along the documentation to insert row with formatting:

There was a high demand, from you guys, that just like Excel, Aspose.Cells supports replacing special characters while opening a CSV file. So, we’re very excited to break the news that this feature is now supported in the API. Just have a look at the below example to see how easy it is to achieve this with Aspose.Cells for Java.

As you must already have some idea that Office Open XML, which is also known as OOXML or Microsoft Open XML (MOX), is a very common format used for files. It is an XML-based format developed by Microsoft for representing office documents like spreadsheets, charts, presentations, and word processing documents. Aspose.Cells already allowed to open and detect type of this format. But now, our team has gone a step forward, and supported to detect type of encrypted OOXML files. Check out the sample code below:

3 Major Enhancements in Aspose.Cells for Java

In addition to the features highlighted above, you can now improve your products with the help of these 4 major improvements:

• API Reference (JavaDocs) has been updated along with improving the process of attaching JavaDocs to our API in the IDEs. Now, you should be able to utilize the API upto its full capacity with the help of the updated API Reference of Aspose.Cells for Java.
• Based on our user’s demand to access all the hyperlinks in a range of cells and delete anyone if required, we have supported this feature in this release. You can use Range.getHyperlinks() to get all the hyperlinks from a range, and then delete those using Hyperlink.delete() method.
• Small integer variable was available to get the number of cells in the Worksheet. In the newer versions of Excel, when number of cells was increased, it was not possible to get the large number of cells. This shortcoming is corrected by providing appropriate data type which can be evaluated using sample code in this topic.

A Few Minor Improvements in the API

The following is a list of some minor changes made to the public API such as added, renamed, removed or deprecated members as well as any non-backward compatible changes made to Aspose.Cells for Java:

• Added ListObject.AlternativeDescription and ListObject.AlternativeText properties toget and set the alternative text and description of the table
• Added Line.ThemeColor property to get and set the theme color of the line
• Added Mode3d and MsoModel3dFormat class which encapsulates the object that represents a single 3D model in a spreadsheet
• Added ImageType.Gltf enum which represents the type of 3D model

Alright! by now, you must have got pretty good idea of what we have been working on, since the last release, to help you improve and speed up your development efforts. Well, where you go from here on? Choice is yours!

You can take a little break and come back for more, or if you have already taken your cup of coffee, then let’s talk further about this release in our forums. You can also check out API examples at Github, or go ahead and download latest version of Aspose.Cells for Java to play with it. And stay tuned for more exciting features and news!