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06
Apr
Calcbuilder extended: How to build your calculator from Excel
If you already have an excel with all your formulas of your calculator and you need to convert it to a working form on your site, you can use the excel mapping function of CalcBuilder extended version to build your calculator in a few simple steps:
- Create a new calculator and add your input fields and input form as you will do for default calculators.
- Upload your excel using 'Spreadsheet' menu option, valid formats are .xls, .xlsx and .odt
- Map your form inputs with the cells of your excel at the 'input' section. There you have to write the name of the field at your form, and where should they be placed at your excel, with the number of sheet and the destination cell (0 is the first sheet, 1 is the second sheet...etc).
- Select one sheet as your ouput, this will discard default exit layout.
- Or, map your output cells to any variable. For ex, you can map cell C3 to result1.Cell D5 with result2...and now you can print your results at the output form. ##result1##, ##result2## will print the calculated cells of your excel.
You're done. Now your input form sends the inputs to the excel file, that will perform all calculations and return back the results needed.
Extra functions:
- Use Spreadsheet File Cache: use this to improve performance only when you don't need to refresh your excel upload for a while. File will be cached so we suggest to activate only when you finish testing your excel sheet file.
- Build output from sheet: Sheet selected will be used as output of the calculator. This will replace any exit layout you have configured using html editor.
- Build PDF output from sheet: Sheet selected will be used to show contents when export to pdf is enabled. This will replace print preferences contents.
- Build Excel output from file: When enabled export to excel returns your uploaded excel file filled with your inputs.
- Spreadsheet calculation launches: You can also execute custom php code before and/or after the excel is launched. Use the option to select when you prefer to launch the calculations. You can also choose to execute the excel 'inside' your php code, you only need to write
//[EXCEL]inside your code in order to launch excel calculations at that specific point. This can be used to perform initial handling of your data before sending them to excel and/or after results are recovered.
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