InfoPath Dev

Is it possible to export a Form which I have designed to a specific MS Excel file i.e. one which i have already designed?

Please help!

Hi,

You can not export infopath form to specific excel file.It will take random excel file

Thank You.

You can export to Excel, but you will have to create an transform file and apply it to the XML that is saved from the form.

Try this:
1. Open your Excel file, go to File -> Save As, choose ExcelML to save the Excel file as an XML file.

2. Open the XML file created in step 1 in Visual Studio and insert XSLT functions and change the file extension to map data from your form into the ExcelML format.

3. Apply the transformation from a file that you have saved off from your form.

I hope this helps, I know it's a little vague, but it's been a while since I've done this and it's not the easiest thing to do.

The way to think of this is in reverse actually. You can import an InfoPath XML file into your existing Excel file. However you need to create an XML map in the excel file using the schema from your InfoPath file. A very abbreviated summary of how to do this is:

In InfoPath:
1) open your template in designer.
2) go to File::Save As Source Files
3) save this somewhere.
4) look in your "Data Source" task pane and note the name of the root node (the one at the very top left of the tree.

1) Open your excel spreadsheet
2) Go to Data::XML::XMLSource
3) In the taskpane at the bottom click the "XML Maps..." button.
4) Click the Add button.
5) navigate to the folder where you saved your InfoPath template as "source files"
6) Select the ".xsd" file. That is an XML Schema file which is the most accurate way to create the map. You could also just use an XML document but this won't catch everything (e.g. optional sections which aren't in the XML file).
7) In the "Multiple Roots" dialog that pops up, select the note which is the same name as step 4 in the InfoPath part above. Then click ok.
8) Now you will see a tree that looks very much like the one you had in InfoPath. In fact a secret is that it's the same underlying technology!
9) Drag the relevant nodes from this tree to the columns in your Excel spreadsheet.

Now you've created a map!

All you have to do next is Import the InfoPath xml files into Excel and they'll be populated into the columns based on the map. To do that in Excel go to Data::XML::Import and select your InfoPath XML files which are created from that template you used above.

Office 2007 Note: Note in InfoPath 2007 when you Export to Excel 2007 this map is created for you! Yes, all the above steps are done automatically in InfoPath 2007!