Creating multi-worksheet Excel files with Simple Excel

Published: Oct 13, 2021 by C.S. Rhymes

Recently I had to create a large data export for a project. I like using Spatie’s Simple Excel package to do this as it is very simple to use and works well when exporting large amounts of data to a CSV or Excel file with the ability to stream a download to the browser. This particular project had an additional requirement though, exporting multiple worksheet’s of data at once. Luckily, this package allows you to do this too.

The writer object

The Simple Excel package uses the box/spout package under the hood. In the readme it states that you can get to the underlying writer using ->getWriter().

$writer = SimpleExcelWriter::create($pathToCsv)->getWriter();

If we jump to the box/spout package docs, there is a section on Playing with sheets. The docs show we can see how to get the current sheet, set a name for the current sheet and how to create a new sheet.

Naming a worksheet

To name a worksheet we can use getCurrentSheet() to get the current sheet with the writer and then use setName() to set the name.

$writer = SimpleExcelWriter::streamDownload('your-export.xlsx')->getWriter()
$nameSheet = $writer->getCurrentSheet();
$nameSheet->setName('Names');

Creating a new worksheet

To create a new sheet we can use addNewSheetAndMakeItCurrent() and we can then use setName() once more to set the name of this new sheet.

$addressSheet = $writer->addNewSheetAndMakeItCurrent();
$addressSheet->setName('Addresses');

Bringing it all together

Now we know how to do the individual tasks we can bring it all together.

Create a streamDownload using SimpleExcelWriter
Get the writer, get the current sheet and name it ‘Names’
Add rows of data to the ‘Names’ sheet
Create a new sheet and make it the current sheet, before naming it ‘Addresses’
Add the header row to ‘Addresses’
Add rows of data to the ‘Addresses’ sheet
Finally, return the stream to the browser

use Spatie\SimpleExcel\SimpleExcelWriter;

$stream = SimpleExcelWriter::streamDownload('your-export.xlsx');

$writer = $stream->getWriter();

// Set the name of the current sheet to Names
$nameSheet = $writer->getCurrentSheet();
$nameSheet->setName('Names');

// Add rows to the Names sheet
$stream->addRows([
    ['first_name' => 'Boaty', 'last_name' => 'Mc Boatface'],
    ['first_name' => 'Dave', 'last_name' => 'Mc Dave'],
]);

// Create a new sheet and set the name to Addresses
$addressSheet = $writer->addNewSheetAndMakeItCurrent();
$addressSheet->setName('Addresses');

// Manually add header rows to the Addresses sheet
$stream->addRow(['house_number', 'postcode']);

// Add rows to the Addresses sheet
$stream->addRows([
    ['house_number' => '1', 'postcode' => 'AB1 2BC'],
    ['house_number' => '2', 'postcode' => 'AB1 2BD'],
]);

return $stream->toBrowser();

For more information on creating exports in Laravel, check out Using Laravel Resource Collections with exports.

When creating a single worksheet, the Simple Excel package normally creates the header row for us, but it seems when you create a new sheet you need to define the new headers for your data.

Here are a couple of screenshots of the outputted Excel file:

The Names Excel worksheet

The Addressed Excel worksheet

Photo by Wilfred Iven on StockSnap