How to keep table formatting when sorting table generated by PHPSpreadsheet? - excel

Question

I have generated an Excel table using PHPSpreadsheet including the style and the autofilter:
The problem is when I sort the data by the second and third columns, the table formatting is gone. This is how it looks like compared if I use Table Style directly from Excel (using Home-> Format as Table):
Is there any way to keep the formatting when I sort the table generated from PHPSpreadsheet?
Relevant PHP Code:
for ($rowNumber = 0, $rowNumberMax = sizeof($rows); $rowNumber < $rowNumberMax; $rowNumber++) //rows (all data)
{
$columnNumber = 0; //1 = A
for ($i = 0, $j = sizeof($tableColumns); $i < $j; $i++) //loop through table header label
{
foreach ($rows[$rowNumber] as $rowKey => $rowValue) //loop through single row data
{
if($tableColumns[$i] == $rowKey)
{
$sheet->setCellValueByColumnAndRow($columnNumber + 1, ($rowNumber + 5), $rowValue);
$currentCell = Utilities::num2alpha($columnNumber) .''. ($rowNumber + 5);
$sheet->getStyle($currentCell)->getNumberFormat()->setFormatCode('#');
$sheet->getStyle($currentCell)->getAlignment()->setVertical(\PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Style\Alignment::HORIZONTAL_LEFT);
if(($rowNumber+5) % 2 == 0)
{
//even row
$sheet->getStyle($currentCell)->getFill()->setFillType(\PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Style\Fill::FILL_SOLID)->getStartColor()->setARGB('ffd9e1f2');
}
else
{
//odd row
}
$columnNumber++;
break;
}
}
}
}
//set autofilter
$headerFirstCellPosition = 'A4';
$tableLastCellPosition = Utilities::num2alpha(sizeof($tableColumns) - 1) . '' . (sizeof($rows) + 4);
$sheet->setAutoFilter($headerFirstCellPosition . ':' . $tableLastCellPosition);

Answer 1

The problem is you were just applying formatting to the cells based on if the row was even or odd, but it wasn't actually replicating a table in Excel. You would find the same result in Excel if you just formatted every other row like you did with your PHP code, where the "table" format would get lost.
Somebody just recently implemented a first pass of the actual table feature in Excel: https://github.com/PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet/pull/2671
You need to be on PHPSpreadSheet version 1.23.0 in order to be able to use this.
Using that, you would have to modify your code but you can go to the Samples section in the code area and view how to implement it: https://github.com/PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet/tree/master/samples/Table
https://github.com/PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet/blob/master/samples/Table/01_Table.php
Here is the relevant code (I removed some of the lines and added additional comments from the 01_Table.php sample at the link provided).
Table styles can be found here: https://github.com/PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet/blob/master/src/PhpSpreadsheet/Worksheet/Table/TableStyle.php
// Create Table
$table = new Table('A1:D17', 'Sales_Data');
// Create Table Style
$tableStyle = new TableStyle();
// this line is the style type you want, you can verify this in Excel by clicking the "Format as Table" button and then hovering over the style you like to get the name
$tableStyle->setTheme(TableStyle::TABLE_STYLE_MEDIUM2);
// this gives you the alternate row color; I suggest to use either this or columnStripes as both together do not look good
$tableStyle->setShowRowStripes(true);
// similar to the alternate row color but does it for columns; I suggest to use either this or rowStripes as both together do not look good; I personally set to false and only used the rowStripes
$tableStyle->setShowColumnStripes(true);
// this will bold everything in the first column; I personally set to false
$tableStyle->setShowFirstColumn(true);
// this will bold everything in the last column; I personally set to false
$tableStyle->setShowLastColumn(true);
$table->setStyle($tableStyle);
Also make sure that you include the following to be able to use these:
use PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Worksheet\Table;
use PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Worksheet\Table\TableStyle;
Implementing that into your code will then allow you to sort using the auto filters and keep the formatting like you are expecting.
There are a few caveats such as:
Note that PreCalculateFormulas needs to be disabled when saving spreadsheets containing tables with formulae (totals or column formulae).
Also, as I am actually currently working on doing this, it doesn't look like you can apply an autofilter and have a table at the same time at this point.
That does appear to be on the todo list though, as the first link I provided the contributor has "Filter expressions similar to AutoFilter."
Otherwise, that should get you what you want and aside from being able to auto filter prior to creating the Excel file, it has worked well in my small testing.
Edit to add:
I think you can actually simplify your code a bit by using the functionality of PHPSpreadsheet to create a a spreadsheet from an array.
Documentation from PHPSpreadsheet can be found here: https://phpspreadsheet.readthedocs.io/en/latest/topics/accessing-cells/#setting-a-range-of-cells-from-an-array
You'll need to change it so that the array that is holding the info starts with your headers, so I believe that would look similar to this for your code:
$rows = [
['header1', 'header2', 'header3', 'header4']
];
Then you can populate the $rows array with your data from the rows either with a loop or just a single declaration depending on what you are putting in there, but basically using the below to populate the array.
$rows[] = [
$field1Data,
$field2Data,
$field3Data,
$field4Data
];
After you do that, you can then generate the spreadsheet using the following:
$sheet->getActiveSheet()
->fromArray(
$rows, // the data to set
NULL, // array values with this value will not be set
'A1', // top left coordinate of the worksheet range where we want to set these values (default is A1)
true // adds 0 to cell instead of blank if a 0 is the value
);
After doing the above, you can then add the code to create the table I posted and then save the file and you should be good.
Also, if you are in a situation where you still need to use the autofilter (for instance if you want to pre-filter the file on one or more columns which at this point you can't use a table when doing), you can make the autofilter call a bit easier.
// determine the the number of rows in the active sheet
$highestRow = $spreadsheet->getActiveSheet()->getHighestRow();
// get the highest column letter
$highestColumn = $spreadsheet->getActiveSheet()->getHighestColumn();
// set autofilter range
$spreadsheet->getActiveSheet()->setAutoFilter('A1:'.$highestColumn.$highestRow);
I realize the additional edit goes beyond the question, but figured I'd point it out since there are some built-in methods that you could use to reduce some of your code.
-Matt