PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter causes wrong behaviour

Question

After having created a PHPExcel program, the final step consists of saving the worksheets, to do that, I want to apply these rules so as to generate the file in Excel 2007:

header('Content-Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="workbook1.xlsx"');
header('Cache-Control: max-age=0');
$objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objPHPExcel, 'Excel2007');
$objWriter->save('php://output');

Instead of getting the Excel2007 file, the ouptut with any kind of browser is something like:

07:31:12 Create new PHPExcel object 07:31:12 Set properties 07:31:12 Add some data 07:31:12 Rename sheet 07:31:12 Write to Excel2007 format PKæ;È< —![[Content_Types].xml­”MNÃ0…÷=…å-Jܲ@%í‚Â*Q`ìIcÕ±-{úw{&I ˆE j7±"û½oüg÷œ%”NKë”ü‰Ï¦£by‰]*y„Hª†F¦Üp4SùØH¤ß¸Aªµ\¸ï„òÁa†­ŸŽXñJD£-dÄÙHì­ .....

I tried with various browsers but I get the same result. On the other hand, if I save the file with these lines below, it works fine:

$objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objPHPExcel, 'Excel2007'); 
$objWriter->save('/usr/local/myWorkbooks/workbook1.xlsx');  

Any idea why it does not work through my browser? Thanks in advance for your help

Answer 1

If you're streaming the output to php://output then you must not echo anything else to that output stream. You're clearly echoing the lines:

07:31:12 Create new PHPExcel object 
07:31:12 Set properties 
07:31:12 Add some data 
07:31:12 Rename sheet 
07:31:12 Write to Excel2007 format 

to output before the Excel file itself

Remove those echo lines

This is standard PHP behavior, and a question that has been answered here thousands of times in the past: echoes go to php://output.... I'm surprised you're not also getting a "headers already sent" error as well

Answer 2

You have to clean the output buffer and turn off buffering using ob_end_clean() before saving. Do this instead:

    $objWriter =  PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objPHPExcel, 'Excel2007');

    header('Content-Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet');
    header('Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="workbook1.xlsx"');
    header('Cache-Control: max-age=0');

    ob_end_clean();
    $objWriter->save('php://output');
    exit;