How to write Excel files in java using Apache POI

In this post, we will see how to write excel in java using Apache POI example.

The Apache POI Project’s mission is to create and maintain Java APIs for manipulating various file formats based upon the Office Open XML standards (OOXML) and Microsoft’s OLE 2 Compound Document format (OLE2). In short, you can read and write MS Excel files using Java.

Some basics about Apache POI:

There are two prefixes which you encounter while reading/writing excel in java

HSSF: Used for dealing with files excel 2003 or earlier(.xls). Some of classes with HSSF prefix are HSSFWorkbook , HSSFSheet , HSSFRow and HSSFCell.

XSSF: Used for dealing with files excel 2007 or later(.xlsx). Some of classes with XSSF prefix are XSSFWorkbook , XSSFSheet , XSSFRow and XSSFCell.

Here are few classes which you need to aware of.

  • Workbook : This is high level class for representing excel workbook.
  • Sheet : This is high level class for representing excel sheet.
  • Row : This is high level class for representing excel row. It has methods which are related to row.
  • Cell: This is high level class for representing individual excel cell. It has methods which are related to cell for example : getDataType().

Dependency:

If you are using maven, then you need to add below dependency in pom.xml.
If you are not using maven, then you need to add below jars in classpath.

  • poi-3.13.jar
  • commons-codec-1.9.jar
  • poi-ooxml-3.13.jar
  • poi-ooxml-schemas-3.13.jar
  • xmlbeans-2.6.0.jar
  • stax-api-1.0.1.jar

write excel file using poi:

  1. Create a blank workbook
  2. XSSFWorkbook workbook = new XSSFWorkbook();

  3. Create a sheet and pass name of the sheet
  4. XSSFSheet sheet = workbook.createSheet(“Country”);

  5. Create row
  6. Row row = sheet.createRow(rownum++);

  7. Create cells, set its value and add cell to above row
  8. Cell cell = row.createCell(cellnum++); if(obj instanceof String) cell.setCellValue((String)obj); else if(obj instanceof Double) cell.setCellValue((Double)obj); else if(obj instanceof Integer) cell.setCellValue((Integer)obj);

  9. Repeat 3 and 4 until you have data

Java Program:

We are going to write excel file named  “CountriesDetails.xlsx” Create WriteExcelMain.java as below

When you run above program, you will get following output:

Lets see content of CountriesDetails.xlsx now.

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