ToText

This method exports a range in a worksheet to a string. You can configure the format of this content by using the ExcelOutputTextFormat class as input parameter. This method generates the same output as the SaveToText method, which sends the output to a file instead of a string.

Basic usage

Lets create a worksheet and add some values to the cells:

using(var package = new ExcelPackage())
{
    var sheet = package.Workbook.Worksheets.Add("test");
    sheet.Cells["A1"].Value = 1;
    sheet.Cells["B1"].Value = 2;
    sheet.Cells["A2"].Value = 3;
    sheet.Cells["B2"].Value = 4;
}

...and then call the ToText method:

var content = sheet.Cells["A1:B2"].ToText();

The value of the string content will be "1,2\r\n3,4";

ExcelOutputTextFormat

An instance of this class can be sent in as a parameter to the ToText method.

var format = new ExcelOutputTextFormat{
    TextQualifier = '\''
};
var content = sheet.Cells["A1:B2"].ToText(format);

The ExcelOutputTextFormat class has the following properties:

Property	Datatype	Default value	Description
Delimiter	char	',' (comma)	Delimiter character
TextQualifier	char	'\0' (null)	A character that encapsulates text
EOL	string	"\r\n"	End of line characters
Culture	CultureInfo	CultureInfo.InvariantCulture	Culture used when parsing cell values
SkipLinesBeginning	int	0	Number of lines skipped at the end
SkipLinesEnd	int	0	Number of lines skipped at the end
Encoding	Encoding	Encoding.ASCII	Only used when reading/writing files from disk using a FileInfo object
Header	string	null	A text written at the start of the content
Footer	string	null	A text written at the start of the content
FirstRowIsHeader	bool	true	First row of the range contains the headers. All header cells will be treated as strings
UseCellFormat	bool	true	Use the cells Text property with the applied culture. This only applies to columns with no format set in the Formats collection. If SkipLinesBeginning (see above) is larger than zero, headers will still be read from the first row in the range. If a TextQualifier (see above) is set, non numeric and date columns will be wrapped with the TextQualifier.
Formats	string[]	null	A specific .NET format for the column. Format is applied with the used culture. For a text column use $ as format.
DecimalSeparator	string	null	Decimal separator, if other than the used culture.
ThousandsSeparator	string	null	Thousands separator, if other than the used culture
EncodedTextQualifier	string	null	What to replace the TextQualifier with inside a text when TextQualifier is set. Default is two TextQualifier characters, for example " is replaced with ""
Transpose	bool	false	Transpose data on export

See also

• Sample 2.3 (C#) or Sample 2.3 (VB.NET)
• Export data
• ToText Fixed width