Work with Excel in .NET independently of the installed version of Excel

Operating environment

Visual Studio

• Visual Studio 2022

.NET

• .NET 6.0

Windows

• Windows 7
• Windows 11

Excel

• Microsoft 365
• Office 2007

Prerequisites

Windows

• One of the versions

Excel

• One of the versions

Problems with libraries that work with Excel

One way to programmatically interact with Excel is Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel to reference . This is similar to working directly with the Excel application via COM, so it is slightly different from working with data in an Excel file. As a premise, Excel must be installed in the environment to be executed, but many functions of Excel are available from the program side.

Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel If you use the program, you will think that the program will be written in the following way.

// 実行プログラムの場所にある Excel ファイル
var excelFilePath = $@"{Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess().MainModule?.FileName)}\Sample.xlsx";

// Excel のオブジェクトは参照したら必ず解放する必要があります。
// 解放しないと Excel のプロセスが残り続けます。
Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Application? excel = null;
Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Workbooks? books = null;
Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Workbook? book = null;
Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Sheets? sheets = null;
Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Worksheet? sheet = null;
Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Range? cells = null;
Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Range? range1 = null;
Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Range? range2 = null;
try
{
  // Excel アプリケーションを生成(起動)します
  excel = new Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Application
  {
    DisplayAlerts = false
  };

  // ワークブック一覧を参照します。参照する場合は必ず変数に保持します
  books = excel.Workbooks;

  // Excel ファイルを開きます
  book = books.Open(excelFilePath);

  // シート一覧を参照するので変数に保持します
  sheets = book.Worksheets;

  // シートを参照します。最初のシートは 1 になります
  sheet = (Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Worksheet)sheets[1];

  // セル一覧を参照します
  cells = sheet.Cells;

  // 左上のセルを参照します。一番左上は [1, 1] になります
  range1 = (Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Range)cells[1, 1];

  // セルの値を取得します。値の取得なので後で解放する必要はありません
  var value = (int)range1.Value;

  // 下のセルを参照します
  range2 = (Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Range)cells[2, 1];

  // 日付分足してセットします
  range2.Value = DateTime.Now.Day + value;

  // 保存して閉じます
  book.Close(SaveChanges: true);

  Console.WriteLine("処理が完了しました。");
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
  // 閉じていなければ保存せずに閉じます
  // 開きっぱなしだと Excel 起動時に保存されていないデータとして表示される場合があります
  if (book != null) book.Close(SaveChanges: false);

  Console.WriteLine("処理が失敗しました。");
  Console.WriteLine(ex);
}
finally
{
  // 終了していなければ終了します
  if (excel != null) excel.Quit();

  // 例外が発生した場合でも必ずリソースを解放するようにします
  if (range1 != null) System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(range1);
  if (range2 != null) System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(range2);
  if (cells != null) System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(cells);
  if (sheet != null) System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(sheet);
  if (sheets != null) System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(sheets);
  if (book != null) System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(book);
  if (books != null) System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(books);
  if (excel != null) System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(excel);
}

It is troublesome to have to release resources each time, but since you can use the prepared classes, you can perform Excel processing relatively intuitively.

The drawback, however, is that the version of the library referenced by the program must match or be compatible with the version of Excel installed in the environment in which it is running. For example, a program created by referencing the internal version 15.0 (2013) library of Excel can only run when Excel 2013 is installed. If you want your program to run in many environments, you may need to keep your Excel installation running on a consistent version.

If such an operation is possible, it is fine, but if the installed version of Excel is different, it cannot be accommodated. Therefore, it is necessary to do something on the program side.

Referencing libraries dynamically with dynamic instead of directly referencing them

The problem in this case occurs because the library version is referenced fixed when the program is created. This means that instead of determining the version at the time of program creation, it is necessary to determine the version at the time of program execution.

There are several ways to do it, but this time we will solve it using "" "" and "Type.GetTypeFromProgIDActivator.CreateInstance".dynamic

Normally, in C#, it is necessary to determine the type information at the time of program creation, but if the type is dynamic , the type can be determined at the time of execution. object Unlike dynamic types, if the instance set to a variable is a class, you can also call the methods and properties of that class. However, since what goes into the variable is determined at the timing of execution, an error will occur at execution time if there is no specified method.

The code created using these is as follows.

// 実行プログラムの場所にある Excel ファイル
var excelFilePath = $@"{Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess().MainModule?.FileName)}\Sample.xlsx";

// Excel のオブジェクトは参照したら必ず解放する必要があります。
// 解放しないと Excel のプロセスが残り続けます。
dynamic? excel = null;
dynamic? books = null;
dynamic? book = null;
dynamic? sheets = null;
dynamic? sheet = null;
dynamic? cells = null;
dynamic? range1 = null;
dynamic? range2 = null;
try
{
  // Excel.Application の Type を取得
  var type = Type.GetTypeFromProgID("Excel.Application");
  if (type == null)
  {
    Console.WriteLine("Excel がインストールされていません。");
    return;
  }

  // Excel アプリケーションを生成(起動)します
  excel = Activator.CreateInstance(type);
  if (excel == null)
  {
    Console.WriteLine("Excel.Application のインスタンスの生成に失敗しました。");
    return;
  }
  excel.DisplayAlerts = false;

  // ワークブック一覧を参照します。参照する場合は必ず変数に保持します
  books = excel.Workbooks;

  // Excel ファイルを開きます
  book = books.Open(excelFilePath);

  // シート一覧を参照するので変数に保持します
  sheets = book.Worksheets;

  // シートを参照します。最初のシートは 1 になります
  sheet = (Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Worksheet)sheets[1];

  // セル一覧を参照します
  cells = sheet.Cells;

  // 左上のセルを参照します。一番左上は [1, 1] になります
  range1 = (Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Range)cells[1, 1];

  // セルの値を取得します。値の取得なので後で解放する必要はありません
  var value = (int)range1.Value;

  // 下のセルを参照します
  range2 = (Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Range)cells[2, 1];

  // 日付分足してセットします
  range2.Value = DateTime.Now.Day + value;

  // 保存して閉じます
  book.Close(SaveChanges: true);

  Console.WriteLine("処理が完了しました。");
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
  // 閉じていなければ保存せずに閉じます
  // 開きっぱなしだと Excel 起動時に保存されていないデータとして表示される場合があります
  if (book != null) book.Close(SaveChanges: false);

  Console.WriteLine("処理が失敗しました。");
  Console.WriteLine(ex);
}
finally
{
  // 終了していなければ終了します
  if (excel != null) excel.Quit();

  // 例外が発生した場合でも必ずリソースを解放するようにします
  if (range1 != null) System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(range1);
  if (range2 != null) System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(range2);
  if (cells != null) System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(cells);
  if (sheet != null) System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(sheet);
  if (sheets != null) System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(sheets);
  if (book != null) System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(book);
  if (books != null) System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(books);
  if (excel != null) System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(excel);
}

The type of the declaration of the variable is dynamic , and Excel.Application the creation of is slightly different, but the rest of the code is almost reused.

Since the above code does not refer to the Excel library, it is not possible to use the target Excel-related class information. Therefore, the type of the variable is all dynamic . Also, since we can't reference the class directly,Excel.Application we instead Excel.Application Type.GetTypeFromProgID get the Type information Activator.CreateInstance in and pass it to to create Excel.Application an instance of . By the way, in an environment where Excel is not installed, Type.GetTypeFromProgID you cannot get it in Type , so it is possible to isolate whether it is installed or not.

dynamic The disadvantage of using is that the class cannot be determined when building the program. Intellisense, which is a completion function when entering code, does not display method names and property names. It may be less cumbersome to write code with reference to the library at the beginning and replace it with dynamic later.

When running in a Microsoft 365 environment, you can confirm that it is reflected as follows.

The following is the result of running it on a much older version of Office 2007. If you don't use a function that only works in a specific version, you can make it work quite widely.

By the way, if you run it in an environment where Excel is not installed, you can correctly determine that it cannot be processed.