Package com.smartgwt.client.docs

# Interface ExcelPasting

public interface ExcelPasting

### Copy and Paste with Excel

`DataSource.recordsAsText()` can export a set of DataSource records in tab-separated-values format so that it can be copied and pasted into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

However, be aware that Excel does a bunch of type guessing on pasted data:

- values that look like dates (eg 1-2-2011 and even just 1-2) will become true date-valued cells (as indicated by Excel rendering them as eg 2-Jan). Note that the month-day-year interpretation is locale-dependent so be sure text is exported
- values that look numeric, eg "5.0" become true number values (as indicated by Excel showing just "5")
- values that look like times, eg "5:30", will be converted to times (as indicated by Excel showing 5:30:00 AM when editing the value)
- values with a leading "=" will be treated as formulas

Unfortunately, when these behaviors are undesirable, there is no means of turning them off that doesn't have any drawbacks. You can:

- adding a leading space or other char (but this changes the cell value).
- turning the cell into a trivial formula, eg ="literal value". But this means that when the cell is edited, it's value is a formula.
- format the cells as text in Excel before pasting data onto them

The first or second approach can be enabled when exporting text - see `DataSource.recordsAsText()` and `DataSourceField.exportForceText`.