Passing ExcelTemplate to ExcelApplication

ExcelWriter allows you to generate a spreadsheet from script alone - using the ExcelApplication object - or from a template spreadsheet and a script, using ExcelTemplate. ExcelTemplate provides an intuitive high-performance way to import database values to a spreadsheet, but cannot otherwise modify a spreadsheet at runtime. ExcelApplication's rich object model allows you to modify every aspect of the spreadsheet at runtime. You can take advantage of the features of both ExcelApplication and ExcelTemplate by using them together. For example, you can use ExcelTemplate to open and populate an ExcelWriter template, then pass the populated workbook to ExcelApplication and add a chart.

To pass a workbook from ExcelTemplate to ExcelApplication, do not call ExcelTemplate.Save. Instead, pass the ExcelTemplate object to ExcelApplication's Open method:

ExcelTemplate xlt = new ExcelTemplate();
xlt.Open(templatePath);
...
xlt.SetDataSource(data, "Sales");
xlt.Process();	

/* Create an instance of ExcelApplication and
* open the spreadsheet you created with ExcelTemplate.
* The spreadsheet will be returned as a Workbook
* object.
*/
ExcelApplication xla = new ExcelApplication(); 
Workbook wb = xla.Open(xlt);	
...

Code Sample: Passing ExcelTemplate to ExcelApplication

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