ProductsMapForceExcel 2007 Mapping

Altova MapForce® 2008 includes support for data integration based on the new spreadsheet format for Microsoft® Excel 2007 under the new Office Open XML file format specification.

Office Open XML (also commonly known as OOXML or OpenXML) is a powerful emerging specification for electronic documents and is the default file format for the popular Microsoft Office 2007 suite. Recently approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as an International Standard, OOXML was originally developed by Microsoft to replace the binary file formats that it had traditionally used for data storage.

As Microsoft customers continue to upgrade to the newest version of the Office suite, support for Excel 2007 will become an indispensable feature for sophisticated data integration applications.

MapForce supports the use of Excel 2007 files as sources or targets, enabling you to take advantage of its powerful graphical interface for both legacy data conversions and advanced spreadsheet transformations.

Mapping support includes:

• XML Schema to/from Excel 2007
• Database to/from Excel 2007
• FlexText™ to/from Excel 2007
• EDI to/from Excel 2007
• Web services to/from Excel 2007

 Click here to download a fully functional, free 30-day trial of Altova MapForce® 2008!

Developing Excel 2007 Mappings

When you begin a new mapping based on an Excel 2007 (XLSX) file, MapForce will prompt you to assign a sample file or global resource to preview your transformation. In the case of using an Excel 2007 spreadsheet as a target component, MapForce will load an empty template without a sample file.

To develop an Excel 2007 mapping based on an existing spreadsheet or workbook, simply open your source file in MapForce using the File menu command, or drag and drop your document into the design pane. MapForce will display a graphical representation of the file structure, depicting rows, columns, and cells, as well as references to numbers and names. This component includes clickable icons which allow you to define and specify mappable data.

Clicking this icon will cause the Select Range of Cells dialog to appear, where you can configure your mapping component by specifying cell datatypes and optionally inserting reference annotations.

These settings will populate the source file, ensuring an explicit mapping design. Now you can simply import a target structure and drag connecting lines to associate data.

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Filtering and Processing Data

MapForce also provides flexible support for filtering and processing data via advanced processing functions based on Boolean conditions or manipulating data as it’s converted from source to target format. You can create and combine custom functions, or build advanced functions using MapForce’s extensive function library.

See the Data Processing Functions page for more information.

Code Generation

Once you have finished defining your data mappings and processing functions, MapForce autogenerates the program code required to migrate data from the source to the target content structure for use in your customized data integration applications. This allows you to reuse your mapping structure for future iterations. Transformation code can be generated in Java or C#, ensures compatibility and interoperability across different platforms, servers, programming languages and database environments.

Learn more in the Code Generation section.

Instant Data Conversion

Once your mapping is defined, the built-in MapForce Engine allows you to view and save the results with one click. Mappings to Excel 2007 produce Office Open XML (OOXML) markup.

An example of Excel 2007 output is shown below.

Learn more in the Output View section.

See how MapForce® 2008 can help you integrate your data with the Excel 2007 (OOXML) format. Download a free 30-day trial of MapForce.