How to export data to an excel by preserving styles

Question

Hi All,
I am trying to export data to an excel using ColdFusion. Below is my code.
<cfheader name="content-disposition" value="attachment; filename=dashboard.xls">
<cfcontent type="application/msexcel">
<table width="200" border="1">
  <tr>
    <td width="40"> </td>
    <td width="160">
      <table width="160" border="1">
      <tr>
        <td width="20" bgcolor="red"> </td><td width="20" bgcolor="black"> </td><td width="20" bgcolor="red"> </td><td width="20" bgcolor="black"> </td>
        <td width="20" bgcolor="red"> </td><td width="20" bgcolor="black"> </td><td width="20" bgcolor="red"> </td><td width="20" bgcolor="black"> </td>
      </tr>
      </table>
    </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td width="40"> </td>
   <td width="160">
      <table width="160" border="1">
      <tr>
        <td width="20" bgcolor="red"> </td><td width="20" bgcolor="black"> </td><td width="20" bgcolor="red"> </td><td width="20" bgcolor="black"> </td>
        <td width="20" bgcolor="red"> </td><td width="20" bgcolor="black"> </td><td width="20" bgcolor="red"> </td><td width="20" bgcolor="black"> </td>
      </tr>
      </table>
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>
When I try to execute above code by commenting <cfheader><cfcontent> then the output is perfect. styles are preserved. And when I uncomment <cfheader><cfcontent> and execute code, then an excel file will get open. But all the styles are lost. So how to preserve all styles(table width etc.) in excel.
Can anybody please assist me on this. Thanks in advance.
Regards,
Manoz.

Answer 1

I copied your code and did the test. Result: no problem.
However, I used the following table data in my test. Did you use any data in yours? To fully test an HTML table, you have to put in some data.
<!--- <cfheader name="content-disposition" value="attachment; filename=dashboard.xls">
<cfcontent type="application/vnd.ms-excel"> --->
<table width="200" border="1">
  <tr>
    <td width="40">xxx</td>
    <td width="160">
      <table width="160" border="1">
      <tr>
        <td width="20" bgcolor="red">AAA</td><td width="20" bgcolor="black">ccc</td><td width="20" bgcolor="red">eee</td><td width="20" bgcolor="black">ggg</td>
        <td width="20" bgcolor="red">&n b s p;</td><td width="20" bgcolor="black">ddd</td><td width="20" bgcolor="red">fff</td><td width="20" bgcolor="black">hhh</td>
      </tr>
      </table>
    </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td width="40">yyy</td>
   <td width="160">
      <table width="160" border="1">
      <tr>
        <td width="20" bgcolor="red">111</td><td width="20" bgcolor="black">333</td><td width="20" bgcolor="red">555</td><td width="20" bgcolor="black">&n b s p;</td>
        <td width="20" bgcolor="red">222</td><td width="20" bgcolor="black">444</td><td width="20" bgcolor="red">666</td><td width="20" bgcolor="black">888</td>
      </tr>
      </table>
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>
Two other things to note. First, I have used &n b s p; for empty table-data. Secondly, though the MIME type you have used for excel might work, the correct  value is application/vnd.ms-excel.