somebody on daniweb recently did a thing with php/excel with COM. I think you need to be running IIS, but I may be wrong. Search the last 4 days for posts on this.

if only the data is important, the structure of the file constant,
mysql/php export the data as csv which excel can import and read as data
without fussing with .xls format
if the structure of the file is important, for calculated fields, a 'blank' .xls for download and then import the same comma separated values into it

If you need a lockdown .xls file try http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/package/3995.html

Thank you guys for the help so far, i have been able to click on export and then "Microst Excel 2000" which has done what i want, but when i try to mail merge it just gives me an error, can someone please help, please note that i have found a tutorial but its not exactly what i want to thank you so far.

http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/showtopic10132.htm
This tutorial is easy to follow and will teach you how to write a tab delimited text file with a xls extension in php. It uses basic php text file functions such as fopen and fwrite.

I think that you can use my little desktop_write routine to produce your excel file.

http://innovationsdesign.net/wb_2.7/.../downloads.php

Are you wanting to do it via a website or inside excel itself?
I know that if you press some alt and function key or somethign, you can insert vb6 code inside excel. This also includes created forms. If done correctly you can load the form and it inserts the code inside the table.-- how its done, i couldnt' tell you

Hello Guys.

Thank you for replying back, what i need is 3 fields which are

Name
Age
Location

And when i fill this in, it stores the data to mysql database, which i know how to do,


But then i want to go to convertphptoexcel.php which then converts all the feilds and information to excel so i can download the file and open it so i can do mailmerge.

If its just for mail merge
output the query that gets the information as comma separated
every mail merge can handle csv, an excel spreadsheet is unneccessary for the task,
like swatting a fly with an a-bomb

edit. do those "/" point the right way?