Using Laravel Excel to Import and Export Excel/CSV Files in Laravel

Laravel Excel integrates the PHPOffice PHPExcel library into Laravel, allowing expressive code for Excel and CSV import/export. The package is available at https://github.com/Maatwebsite/Laravel-Excel .

Installation & Configuration

Run the Composer command:

composer require maatwebsite/excel

After installation, add the service provider to the providers array in config/app.php :

Maatwebsite\Excel\ExcelServiceProvider::class,

and register the facade in the aliases array:

'Excel' => Maatwebsite\Excel\Facades\Excel::class,

Publish the default configuration file with:

php artisan vendor:publish

This creates config/excel.php where you can adjust settings.

Exporting an Excel File

Create a plain controller:

php artisan make:controller ExcelController --plain

Define a route in routes.php :

Route::get('excel/export', 'ExcelController@export');

Route::get('excel/import', 'ExcelController@import');

Implement the export method:

<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Excel;
class ExcelController extends Controller {
    // Export Excel file
    public function export() {
        $cellData = [
            ['学号','姓名','成绩'],
            ['10001','AAAAA','99'],
            ['10002','BBBBB','92'],
            ['10003','CCCCC','95'],
            ['10004','DDDDD','89'],
            ['10005','EEEEE','96'],
        ];
        Excel::create('学生成绩', function($excel) use ($cellData) {
            $excel->sheet('score', function($sheet) use ($cellData) {
                $sheet->rows($cellData);
            });
        })->export('xls');
    }
}

Visiting http://your-domain/excel/export downloads 学生成绩.xls . Change the format argument to csv or xlsx to export those types.

To store the file on the server instead of immediate download:

Excel::create('学生成绩', function($excel) use ($cellData) {
    $excel->sheet('score', function($sheet) use ($cellData) {
        $sheet->rows($cellData);
    });
})->store('xls')->export('xls');

The file is saved under storage/exports . If the filename appears garbled, convert it with:

iconv('UTF-8','GBK','学生成绩');

Importing an Excel File

Use the load method of the Excel facade to read a previously stored file:

// Excel import method
public function import() {
    $filePath = 'storage/exports/' . iconv('UTF-8','GBK','学生成绩') . '.xls';
    Excel::load($filePath, function($reader) {
        $data = $reader->all();
        dd($data);
    });
}

The load method uses the project root as the base path, so the same charset conversion is required for Chinese filenames.