a hand with converting xml to excel as well as xhtml

[Fou-Lu]

These are kinda like two different posts, but I figure, might as well save some space. My first question is, does anyone know of any really usable xml / xsl -> excel tutorials out there? I need to control a lot more than standard tags and whatnots for that.

Second:
When using XML and XHTML, I can never get my doctype to clear in a validator, assumably because when the source is viewed, its still contains my tags, which of course are xhtml strict errors. In anycase, does whats the name of it... data island, or something of the sorts, fix the problems with this?

Any responses would be greatly appreciated!

[mpjbrennan]

I'm not sure what you are intending exactly, but are you aware that Excel will open an XML file and display it according to its associated style sheet? You can then resave it as an Excel workbook - thereby converting it to Excel format.

patrick

[Fou-Lu]

Yeah, I know that excel can import, but I cannot get it to control the layout on the pages correctly. I'm not sure if I'm just doing it incorrectly, or if excel has its own set of tags required to set the task up. Which is what I am looking for, a list of all the methods to control how the xml is displayed in excel. Any suggestions on finding the list (I've tried googling, nothing really interesting has come up!)

Best description:
How I display the XML in a webpage, that wouldn't work in excel would it?

[mpjbrennan]

If you want Excel to display your webpage with format identical to that rendered in a browser then I think you are out of luck - sorry!

patrick

[Fou-Lu]

No no no no no. I know its not quite the same, lol.
I don't actually want it for a webpage. I'm doing this stupid thing at work, and because it changes so often day by day, I thought to myself, hey this would be super easy if I can import xml into it from my database! The problem is, I'm not sure how to go abouts doing it. I'm new enough to XML let alone how its imported into excel. I want the excel spreadsheet to display a similar design for each but it will change the number of rows and number of days.
The concept is that I need to find out how many blockings of rooms for groups we have. Down the left side I want to list the types of rooms they had, and across the top the number they had for each day. This isn't really a tricky task to do I know, but I want to be able to color it a bit so that its easier to read. I also want to do this with each group that has been in. The problem I'm having is that when I create an excel sheet and export it as xml, it has all these... odd tags that I don't specify, but I'm assuming excel requires. Unfortunatly ATM I don't have an example of what I mean, I can get one after. What I'm looking for is if anyone knows of a place where I can find what all of these tags do, and how to manipulate them.

[mpjbrennan]

A quick search for "XML" on the Excel homepage at microsoft.com gives a lot of information on this subject.

patrick

[Fou-Lu]

Lol
Isn't that brilliant of me... last place to check is microsofts site ;)

Thanx for pointing that out!