XLS Converter manual

XLS Converter is the Windows based graphical transformation engine for creating Excel spreadsheets from your database. It allows organizations to quickly and easily share information, captured within corporate data, with anyone in the world by utilizing established Excel spreadsheet definitions. Using this software, enterprises can share data with customers, suppliers or partners as well as distribute data across business units. XLS Converter is great for producing fast, static, simple, data-driven Excel spreadsheets.

Just choose your data source, select transformation options, and generate the MS Excel file. This tool quickly and easily converts source data from XML format, Microsoft Access .mdb databases, MS Word .doc document or text .txt file. XLS Converter supports major databases such as Oracle and MS SQL Server. In the future it will handle also any ODBC database. The XLS Converter allows you to browse source data and make analysis of data source structure. This software has database navigation features that provide the ability to view your entire source data. It allows users to see source files that they are opening for converting. Also after converting you can review and edit destination Excel spreadsheet.

XLS Converter takes all the guesswork out of designing and authoring database publishing projects from start to finish. The output file is a MS Excel file. Each table of your data source will become a worksheet, each record will become a row. The elegant tabbed design assists you through the transformation process.

XLS Converter is designed for 32-bit operating systems and works under the Microsoft® .NET Framework.

The XLS Converter runs on:
- Microsoft Windows NT® 4.0 (SP 6a required)
- Microsoft Windows 2000 (SP2 Recommended)
- Microsoft Windows XP Professional
- Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
(Windows 95/98/ME and Windows 3.1 systems are not supported)

Software Requirements:
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 or later (install Internet Explorer 6.0)

To author with XLS Converter, your system should be equipped with the following:

Pentium 90 MHz (minimum) or faster (recommended)

32 MB RAM (minimum) or more (96 MB or more recommended)

50 MB free disk space (minimum) or more

Important: Do not open a Microsoft Word file that is being used as a source during the XLS Converter execution, because a "file in use" error will occur.

License Agreement

Before installing RS XLS Converter please read carefully terms and conditions of this agreement. You will express your consent to be bound by the terms of this Agreement by obtaining or opening Software media package. If you do not agree to all terms of this agreement do not use Software and destroy all copies of Software from your computer.

Grant of license:

Rustemsoft (the Developer) grants you (the Customer) a worldwide, non-exclusive, non-transferable, personal license to install and use the accompanying XLS Converter (the Software) in the manner provided herein.

1. Software is licensed, not sold. Software is protected by copyright law, international copyright treaty provisions and other intellectual property laws and treaties. Customer must not allow copies of Software or any part of it to be made or distributed to anyone else. Customer may make backup copies of Software for archival purposes only.

2. Software is licensed for use on a single computer. Customer may delete Software from one computer and reinstall it on another, but Customer may not install Software on more than one computer at any given time without Developer's prior written permission.

3. Software may not be rented, leased, nor in any other manner commercially exploited without Developer's prior written permission.

4. Developer makes no representations or warranties about the suitability of this Software for any purpose. Software is provided 'as is' without express or implied warranties, including warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement. Developer may not issue updates to this Software.

5. All data sources accessed through Software is the property of the applicable content owner and may be protected by applicable copyright law.  This license gives Customer no rights to such content, and Developer disclaims any liability for misuse of data sources.

6. Title, ownership rights, and intellectual property rights in and to Software shall remain with Developer. Customer agrees not to modify Software or attempt to decipher, disassemble, decompile or reverse engineer Software. Reproduction and/or redistribution of any portion of Software is prohibited without Developer's prior written permission.

7. Developer may terminate this license at any time by delivering notice to Customer and Customer may terminate this license at any time by destroying or erasing Customer's copy of Software. Upon termination of this license, Customer agrees to destroy all copies of Software. In case of termination sections 4 through 10 of this agreement shall indefinitely survive its termination. This license is the complete statement of the agreement between Developer and Customer and merges and supersedes all other or prior understandings, purchase orders, agreements and arrangements.

8. Developer or its suppliers shall not be liable for direct, incidental, consequential, special or indirect damages of any sort whatsoever. This includes loss of business profits, revenues, information, or business interruption resulting from Customer's use of Software or inability to use Software, even if Developer has been informed of the possibility of such damages.

9. This Software is not fault-tolerant. It is not designed, manufactured or intended for use in hazardous environments requiring fail-safe performance. Developer and its suppliers specifically disclaim any express or implied warranty of fitness for high-risk activities.

10. Developer reserves the right to discontinue distribution and/or support of its products at any time without notice. Developer reserves the right to change the prices of its products and services at any time without notice. Developer reserves the right to put Customer's company name on User representative list at Rustemsoft web site.

Complete agreement:

This Agreement is the entire agreement between you and Developer relating to its subject matter. This Agreement may not be modified other than in writing executed by Rustemsoft.

Copyright © 2001-2003 Rustem Sabitov. All rights reserved.

XLS Converter is "Shareware". This means that we have made the software available to you for the trial. The evaluation is not slideshow presentation. You can freely create an XLS output from your data source. It is fully functional but you can use it for limited time only. And then, if you decide to buy the software, you must register your copy with us.

Evaluation version (non-registered) of XLS Converter is a "full-featured" release. This means that the same capabilities available in the registered software are present in the non-registered software. This allows you to try out all the features in XLS Converter to confirm that they work to your satisfaction.

Registration entitles you free technical support for 30 days and free minor upgrades to the software. Registration may also entitle you to discounts on new software releases from Rustemsoft. Developer will also send you information bulletins by email to let you know about what’s happening with Rustemsoft products.

Finally, by registering the software, you provide us with the resources and incentive to support the software with updates and to develop additional quality products in the future.

Point your browser to the following Order Form to register online:

XLS Converter Standard Edition

1. Run XLS Converter

2. Open Source file by using 'Open file' dialog box

3. Choose a source table, which you want to convert from opened XML file, Microsoft Access .mdb databases, Microsoft Word .doc document, SQL Server/Oracle table / view, or text .txt file.

4. To start data transformation just click 'Convert now!' button.

5. After that you may review or edit your destination file in MS Excel by clicking on its name in 'Results' right tabpage

The XLS Converter main window is split into two vertically-aligned panes.

The left pane displays a hierarchical view of Data Source objects or containers in a tree-like structure. A container is a Data Source object that can hold other Data Source objects, including other containers.

For example, the "0.mdb" displayed above is a container that holds the Table folders. Data Source is at the root of the tree.

The right pane has tree tagpages: Data, Structure, and Results. First tagpage Data displays the contents of the container that is selected in the left pane. Second tagpage Structure presents data structure of a currently selected in left pane table. Third tagpage Results is a list of all generated during XLS Converter session XLS files. By clicking one you will be able to run MS Excel (if it is installed on your PC) with the selected XLS file.

The software enables you to resize each of two panes by using special splitter on edge of window. When you pass the mouse pointer over the internal vertical edge of pane, the cursor changes to indicate that the chosen pane can be resized.

The main dialog toolbar is intended for manipulation and it provides you with graphic buttons for common commands.

 Open – open existing Data Source file (MS Office: mdb, xsl, doc, or txt)

 Open DB – open Source Database (Oracle or SQL Server)

 Save – save Target MS Excel file

 DTD – create DTD(document type definition)

 XLS – create Excel spreadsheet

The Data Source is a collection of all the objects in a database. XLS Converter displays a Data Source as a hierarchy of containers and their contents. This section describes how to view the schema of a Data Source.

Expanding a Data Source container

Just as in the Windows Explorer, there are a variety of methods for viewing the objects in your Data Source, including the following:

Click a container in the left pane to select that container. The middle pane then displays the contents of the selected container.

Click once on the plus or minus icon next to a container in the left pane. This action expands or collapses the container. If no plus or minus icons appear next to a container, it means that the container holds no objects extending beyond the level of that container.

Double-click a container. This action expands the tree in the left pane and displays the contents of the container in the right pane.

The left pane displays container objects only. The middle pane displays the contents of the Table object selected in the left pane. For example, when you select some table’s folder in the left pane, all data within that table is displayed in the middle pane.

Viewing the tables in a Data Source

The following illustrates the steps taken to examine the contents of a table folder in a database container.

To examine the tables in the sample database:

Open Data Source by using "Open" button on tool bar. Root element will be expanded.

Each table in tree is itself a container. Select a table in the left pane to reveal the contents of that table in the middle pane. Each table object contains folders for columns and properties.

Expand the table object in the left pane to reveal its contents in the hierarchical tree. Select each object in the table container. You will be able to see the contents of that object.

View the data in the database

In addition to viewing the Data Source tree, you can view the data in the database tables from XLS Converter.

To view the contents of database tables:

In the left pane, click the contact table. In the middle pane the data in the table is displayed.

Converting features

On the left of each table you see checkbox. If you select/deselect these checkboxes you may turn on/off some particular table for including it to transformation process. You may include more than one table to a group of tables, which will be converted. By clicking first database checkbox you can select all tables. In this case when you have selected all of them you can convert data from all tables to one common XLS spreadsheet.

You can connect directly to a Database to obtain some XLS outputs. The "Connect to Database" dialog box is used to connect to an Oracle database server or to MS SQL Server. You can display the Connect to Database dialog box by selecting the "Connect to Database" item from the "File" menu or just push "Ctrl+F2" keys. You can also access the dialog box by selecting the "Connect to Database" button in the Main dialog toolbar and left-mouse clicking to call the dialog.
User Name: Specifies user's name for connecting to the database.
Password: Specifies user's password for connecting to the database.
Database: Network service name, such as MY_DATABASE, for the database to which you are connecting. The connect strings for the service names must be set up correctly. Otherwise, the connection provider used by the XLS Converter is not able to locate the database.

Check the "Save connection Info" option to store the connection settings as the preferred settings to be used when connecting to this database next time when you will use XLS Converter again. You can set up "Save connection Info" to connect to a database without entering login information.

You can open and browse some Oracle database objects. The types of database objects that XLS Converter supports for an Oracle database are:

Properties
Tables
Synonyms
Views
Stored Procedures
Functions
Packages
Triggers

Oracle Table Data editing
XLS Converter for Oracle now has Table Data Editing features, which allows you to view, update, and delete the contents of a table. To view table data, simply left-mouse click a table in the tree view and just start to edit table data content.
In the Table Data Editing mode, you can perform the following tasks:
View a table you have selected as rows and columns in a datagrid.
Update fields, and insert and delete rows in the table.
Make multiple changes, which will be applied to Oracle database at once.
User can edit and format memo field values (LONG data type) in a special text editing window.

XLS Converter provides a completely graphical user-friendly environment which will help you visually transform Oracle (or MS SQL Server) tables or/and views to XLS spreadsheet. You will be able browse view result in data grid and convert to Excel spreadsheet. Using XLS Converter you can query an Oracle/MS SQL Server tables and return results as Excel files. In XLS Converter user interface you can create and replace a view, this view will contain the results of the query.

By clicking right mouse button on the database tree (left pane) XLS Converter allows you to create new view. Then you will need to insert a SQL script for your query. In middle pane "Script" tab you may write something like the following:

SELECT * FROM MY_TABLE

and then save your new view.

Then you could select "Data" tab button and browse data grid to move through the query result. You can now query created view as if it were a single database table.

Also you may overwrite the previous view. Go back to "Script" section of middle pane and rewrite your query, change something in query script. For example, you may change your query SQL script:

SELECT * FROM MY_TABLE ORDER BY YEAR

Click "Save" button and go back to "Data". Your view will be replaced and corresponding query result will be recreated.

To start data transformation just click "XLS" button on main XLS Converter toolbar.

Main Features of XLS Converter related to Oracle database are:
1. Supports Generation of Excel spreadsheets from Oracle tables and/or views.
2. Supports in XLS Converter GUI inserts, updates, and deletes of database records. Update data directly to Oracle database. These updates are corresponding to a given Excel spreadsheet.
3. Supports general Oracle data types.
4. Create and update Oracle views. By using XLS Converter you can create a view in your Oracle database, browse query result, update the view and store it.

On the "Options" menu bar you can adjust your XLS transformation by selecting some particular types of ...

Convert source data to Oracle database
Do you need to convert relational data loaded into your data source (MS Excel workbook, MS Access database, MS Word document) into a custom Oracle database? XLS Converter can be used as a middleware to resolve these conversion needs. This is accomplished by using a TransX Oracle utility that serves the purpose of filling the Oracle database with data from a specially prepared Excel spreadsheet. An XML view of the data source (created by converting the data source using Rustemsoft XLS Converter) is then transformed using the Oracle utility into an Oracle database.

Also XLS Converter gives you ability to adjust and save a transformation table-schema for each converted table. Once you set this schema for a particular data source next time you will be able to reuse your previous stored setting. How to generate specially for the TransX utility prepared XML file by using the Converter?
Please follow the several steps:

1. On the "Options" form select "XML with TransX schema".
2. Check "Use TransX table settings".
3. Go to XML tags setup interface and choose from drop-down "Choose an XML Tags Setup Schema:" combobox "TransX tags schema" set.
4. Try to create some XML output from your data source. During the creation a special "Table Settings for TransX Schema" interface window will appear. By using this interface you will adjust and save a transformation table-schema for each converted table.