Spring MVC - Generate Excel Example

The following example shows how to generate Excel using the Spring Web MVC Framework.

To start with, let us have a working Eclipse IDE in place and consider the following steps to develop a Dynamic Form based Web Application using Spring Web Framework −

pom.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
   <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
   <groupId>com.tutorialspoint</groupId>
   <artifactId>hello</artifactId>
   <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
   <packaging>war</packaging>
   <name>hello Maven Webapp</name>
   <url>http://www.tutorialspoint.com</url>
   <properties>
      <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
      <maven.compiler.source>24</maven.compiler.source>
      <maven.compiler.target>24</maven.compiler.target>
      <org.springframework.version>7.0.0-M9</org.springframework.version>
   </properties>
   <dependencies>
      <dependency>
         <groupId>junit</groupId>
         <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
         <version>4.13.1</version>
         <scope>test</scope>
      </dependency>
      <dependency>
         <groupId>jakarta.servlet</groupId>
         <artifactId>jakarta.servlet-api</artifactId>
         <version>6.0.0</version>
         <scope>provided</scope>
      </dependency>
      <dependency>
         <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
         <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
         <version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
         <scope>compile</scope>
      </dependency>
      <dependency>
         <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
         <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
         <version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
         <scope>compile</scope>
      </dependency>
      <dependency>
         <groupId>com.rometools</groupId>
         <artifactId>rome</artifactId>
         <version>2.1.0</version>
      </dependency>
      <dependency>
         <groupId>org.apache.poi</groupId>
         <artifactId>poi</artifactId>
         <version>5.4.1</version>
      </dependency>
      <dependency>
         <groupId>org.apache.poi</groupId>
         <artifactId>poi-ooxml</artifactId>
         <version>5.4.1</version>
      </dependency> 
   </dependencies>
   <build>
      <finalName>hello</finalName>
      <pluginManagement>
         <plugins>
            <plugin>
               <artifactId>maven-clean-plugin</artifactId>
               <version>3.4.0</version>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
               <artifactId>maven-resources-plugin</artifactId>
               <version>3.3.1</version>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
               <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
               <version>3.13.0</version>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
               <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
               <version>3.3.0</version>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
               <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
               <version>3.4.0</version>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
            <artifactId>maven-install-plugin</artifactId>
               <version>3.1.2</version>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
               <artifactId>maven-deploy-plugin</artifactId>
               <version>3.1.2</version>
            </plugin>
         </plugins>
      </pluginManagement>
   </build>
</project>

ExcelController.java

package com.tutorialspoint;

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView;

@Controller
public class ExcelController {

   @GetMapping("/excel")
   protected ModelAndView getExcel() throws Exception {
      //user data
      Map<String,String> userData = new HashMap<String,String>();
      userData.put("1", "Mahesh");
      userData.put("2", "Suresh");
      userData.put("3", "Ramesh");
      userData.put("4", "Naresh");
      return new ModelAndView(new UserExcelView(),"userData",userData);
   }
}

UserExcelView.java

package com.tutorialspoint;

import java.util.Map;

import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Row;
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Sheet;
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Workbook;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.view.document.AbstractXlsxView;

import jakarta.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import jakarta.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

public class UserExcelView extends AbstractXlsxView {
   @Override
   protected void buildExcelDocument(Map<String, Object> model, Workbook workbook, HttpServletRequest request,
      HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception {
      Map<String,String> userData = (Map<String,String>) model.get("userData");
      //create a wordsheet
      Sheet sheet = workbook.createSheet("User Report");

      Row header = sheet.createRow(0);
      header.createCell(0).setCellValue("Roll No");
      header.createCell(1).setCellValue("Name");

      int rowNum = 1;
      for (Map.Entry<String, String> entry : userData.entrySet()) {
         //create the row data
         Row row = sheet.createRow(rowNum++);
         row.createCell(0).setCellValue(entry.getKey());
         row.createCell(1).setCellValue(entry.getValue());
      } 
   }
}

Here, we have created an ExcelController and an ExcelView. Apache POI library deals with Microsoft Office file formats and will convert the data to an excel document.

hello-servlet.xml

<beans xmlns = "http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
   xmlns:context = "http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
   xmlns:mvc = "http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
   xmlns:xsi = "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xsi:schemaLocation = "
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans     
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/context 
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.0.xsd">

   <context:component-scan base-package = "com.tutorialspoint" />
   <mvc:annotation-driven />
</beans>

Output

Once you are done with creating source and configuration files, export your application. Right click on your application, use Run As → Maven Install option and save your hello.war file in Tomcat's webapps folder.

Now, start the Tomcat server and make sure you are able to access other webpages from the webapps folder using a standard browser. Try a URL http://localhost:8080/hello/excel and we will see the following screen.