Speeding up data extraction to Excel - excel

Question

I am currently using VBA to run a stored procedure and stored data that been extracted to table. Then, the VBA will query all the data in the data accordingly and put it into excel.
Here the problem, it takes so long for the VBA to extract all data (around 100k rows of data) into excel. Is there any other way to speed up the process? Below is part of my code. The one in bold is the insertion to excel code.
'Row number where data inserting starts
Do
current_sheet = owb.ActiveSheet
With current_sheet
'Insert header to worksheet in first row, ie. A1, B1, C1
For i = 0 To data_cols.GetLength(0) - 1
cell = data_cols(i, 0) & header_row_num 'Change to header_row_num
.Range(cell).Value = data_cols(i, 1)
Next i
End With
row_count = header_row_num + 1 'Change the first row count to a row after header_row_num
'Insert data to worksheet
While rs.EOF = False
With current_sheet
'Set format of specic columns before inserting data
.Columns("A").NumberFormat = "#"
.Columns("B").NumberFormat = "#"
.Columns("C").NumberFormat = "#"
.Columns("D").NumberFormat = "#"
.Columns("E").NumberFormat = "#"
.Columns("F").NumberFormat = "#"
.Columns("G").NumberFormat = "#"
.Columns("H").NumberFormat = "#"
.Columns("I").NumberFormat = "#"
.Columns("J").NumberFormat = "#"
.Columns("K").NumberFormat = "#"
.Columns("L").NumberFormat = "#"
.Columns("M").NumberFormat = "#"
.Columns("N").NumberFormat = "#"
.Columns("O").NumberFormat = "#"
.Columns("P").NumberFormat = "#"
.Columns("Q").NumberFormat = "#"
.Columns("R").NumberFormat = "#"
.Columns("S").NumberFormat = "#"
**'Start inserting data
For i = 0 To data_cols.GetLength(0) - 1
'Get the cell name
cell = data_cols(i, 0) & row_count
'Populate data to the cell
If IsDBNull(rs.Fields(data_cols(i, 2)).Value()) Then
.Range(cell).Value = " "
Else
.Range(cell).Value = rs.Fields(data_cols(i, 2)).Value()
End If
Next i
End With
rs.MoveNext()
'Indicates next row
row_count += 1**
If row_count > 60000 Then
owb.Worksheets.Add(, current_sheet)
need_new_sheet = True
Console.WriteLine("Added new sheet to workbook...")
Exit While
Else
need_new_sheet = False
End If
End While
Loop While (need_new_sheet And rs.EOF = False)
In case certain variable you need to know.
row_count = header_row_num + 1 'Change the first row count to a row after header_row_num
oxl = CreateObject("Excel.Application")
oxl.Visible = False
owb = oxl.Workbooks.Add
Dim data_cols(,) As String = {{"A", "Name", "NAME"}, _
{"B", "Age", "AGE"}} (Not real columns, example)
Any advice or thoughts would be greatly appreciate. Thanks in advance :)

Answer 1

Filling up 100k rows in Excel will definitely take time.
This is what you can do to minimize the time
Use oxl.ScreenUpdating = False in the beginning of the macro and set it to True in the end.
You might want to store the data in the array and then writing the array to Excel in one go in the end. This would definitely decrease the execution time
Excel 2007 onwards Excel has a row limitation of 1048576 rows so you might want to take that into consideration if you cross that limit.
Console.WriteLine("Added new sheet to workbook...") is VB.net. Use Debug.print if you are using VBA.
BTW this will not have significant effect on the speed but you can write the following code
Which is
.Columns("A").NumberFormat = "#"
.Columns("B").NumberFormat = "#"
'
'
'
.Columns("R").NumberFormat = "#"
.Columns("S").NumberFormat = "#"
as
.Columns("A:S").NumberFormat = "#"

Answer 2

The fastest method is CopyFromRecordset.
From MSDN :
expression.CopyFromRecordset(Data, MaxRows, MaxColumns)
expression: Required. An expression that returns a Range object.
Data: Required Variant. The name of the Recordset object to copy into
the range.
MaxRows: Optional Variant. The maximum number of records to copy onto
the worksheet. If this argument is omitted, all the records in the
Recordset object are copied.
MaxColumns: Optional Variant. The maximum number of fields to copy
onto the worksheet. If this argument is omitted, all the fields in the
Recordset object are copied.
For example, in your case just type:
Range("A2").CopyFromRecordset rs