An Example of Exporting to Excel 2007

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The previous sections of this manual gave basic details of exporting MainBoss data. This section provides a concrete example, showing how to export unit data to Microsoft Excel 2007.

The first step is to export the data:

mbutility ex /si:unit /out:mydata /on:mymb +excel

This exports data from a database with the organization name mymb. It creates two output files: the schema is saved in mydata.xsd and the data itself is saved in mydata.xml. Both files are written to the same directory.

Now you're ready to import the data into Excel. If you have Microsoft Office 2007, here's what you do:

1. Start Excel.
2. Click the "Office" button (in the upper left hand corner of the Excel window).
3. In the resulting window, click "Excel Options" (at the bottom of the window).
4. In the resulting window, click "Popular" in the left part of the window, then checkmark "Show Developer Tab in the Ribbon" (if it isn't already checkmarked).
5. Click OK to close the options window.
6. In the main Excel window, click "Developer" in the ribbon.
7. In the XML section of the ribbon, click "Import".
8. In the resulting window, specify the name of the data file (in our example mydata.xml).

Excel gives you the option of reading the data file into the current spreadsheet or into a new one.

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