Export from powershell to excel

The ImportExcel is a PowerShell module that allows you import to or export data directly from Excel spreadsheets without having Microsoft Excel installed on your computer. In this tutorial, you’ll learn to work with Import-Excel and Export-Excel. The ImportExcel module runs on Windows, Linux, or Mac and now can be used in Azure functions and GitHub Actions. Simply put, if you need to generate reports for work, you must learn this module.

Doug Finke, a Microsoft MVP since 2009, builds and maintains the module. Doug is constantly improving the module and releases new module updates frequently. As of this writing, the module is at v7.1.3 and is continually being developed. His module is nearing 1 million downloads since its first release! Installing the module is a simple task with PowerShell code.

Install-Module -Name ImportExcel

Excel is not required to be installed for this module to work. The module installs a .net DLL named epplus.dll that allows the module to import Excel data or export to Excel format. This allows you to install the module on a server without having to install Office on the server.

Importing data from Excel

Getting started with the module is very easy. Let’s start by importing some data from Excel. In this first demo, I’ll be importing some simple data I have from a table in Excel.

To import data, I use the Import-Excel cmdlet and specify the path. In this example, I will also save the data to a variable called «Fruit» for later use.

Import-Excel "c:tempExcelDemo.xlsx" -OutVariable Fruit

Now, we have a simple table with data organized in columns and rows. The table properties reveal that PowerShell has created a PSCustomObject with two note properties for the two columns.

But what if I have a large table of data? I can specify which data gets imported without having to pull in the entire table. Let’s look at how that works.

I have created a new tab in my spreadsheet that contains all the process info from my machine. I have named the tab «Processes.» The spreadsheet has 69 columns of data. I could import all these columns and filter the data, but for this demonstration I just want the Name, ProcessName, CPU, and Memory columns.

Using the Import-Excel cmdlet, I can pull in just the data I am interested in. Let’s pull in the columns I mentioned earlier (Name, ProcessName, CPU, and Memory). For this demo, I only want 6 rows of data. To accomplish this, I use the -ImportColumns, -StartRow and -EndRow parameters.

To pick the columns, I simply count columns from left to right in my spreadsheet starting at 1. I know you can’t see the full spreadsheet, but I have already counted out the columns that I need. To select the columns I want, I will need columns 1, 6, 12, and 46. But if I want to keep them in the order I mentioned above, then the order would have to be 1, 46, 12, and 6.

import-excel C:tempExcelDemo.xlsx -WorksheetName Processes -ImportColumns @(1, 46, 12, 6) -startrow 1 -endrow 7

Export data to Excel

As with the process of importing data, I can also export data to Excel easily with just one line of code. Let’s go back to my previous example: getting the process data. If I want to export all the process info on my machine, all I need to do is type one line:

Get-process | Export-Excel

This results in the Export-Excel cmdlet creating a spreadsheet. If I have Excel installed, it launches Excel and presents the file output to me.

Notice that I didn’t specify a filename or any other formatting information. However, the Export-Excel cmdlet created the spreadsheet and applied some default formatting (see callout 2) and created a temporary file for me (callout 1).

Of course, I can choose a filename and path on export, if I so desire, by using the -path parameter and inputting a value like so:

Get-process | Export-Excel C:tempProcessList.xlsx

Adding data to an existing spreadsheet

At some point, you will need to add data to an existing spreadsheet. The -Append parameter adds data to an existing spreadsheet. I can specify a worksheet to add to with the -worksheet parameter or I can start a new worksheet with the same parameter but picking a new tab name.

So far, I have been working on a spreadsheet named «ExcelDemo.xlsx,» which contains the Fruit and Processes worksheets. I want to add a new tab named «People» and copy in data from a small table I created.

Exporting this data to my existing Excel spreadsheet and creating a new worksheet would look like this:

$People | Export-Excel c:tempExcelDemo.xlsx -Append -WorksheetName "People"

This is easy and doesn’t require much code. Below, we can see the worksheet tabs that have been created from Export-Excel.

When you look at the table, you’ll see that it has none of the familiar Excel spreadsheet formatting. I would like to add some formatting to my data. Let me show you how this can be done.

Exporting data with formatting

The Export-Excel cmdlet offers many options for formatting my data on export. I’ll highlight a few options, but make sure you review the parameters available for the Export-Excel cmdlet for a full list of formatting options.

I would like to export the data again. This time, however, I will add a table style and a title for my table, and I would like the table title to be bold. This is possible with Export-Excel. The code used to do this is slightly different from the previous example:

$People | Export-Excel c:tempExcelDemo.xlsx -Append -WorksheetName "PeopleFormatted" -TableStyle Medium16 -title "Demo of Table Formatting" -TitleBold

You might wonder what the table style I selected (Medium16) in the last example is. The Export-Excel cmdlet has table styles built in that correspond to the table styles you see in Excel.

The table styles in Excel are the same. In the screen cap below, I clicked on the «Format As Table» at the top of the spreadsheet, which then displays the table styles. If you hover your mouse over a style, you’ll see some text that provides you the style details. The #1 callout is the style I hovered over. Notice that it says Medium16. This is how I got the name that I used in my previous code example for the table style parameter.

Creating charts

Export-Excel does more than just make spreadsheets. The cmdlet can export table data and turn that data into a chart inside an Excel spreadsheet. For my next example, I have created a table of some simple inventory items and sales data.

I would like to chart these sales in a simple bar graph that depicts units sold. To do this, I need to define the properties I want for my table. To do this, I use the New-ExcelChartDefinition cmdlet.

$ChartData = New-ExcelChartDefinition -XRange Item -YRange TotalSold -ChartType ColumnClustered -Title "Total Fruit Sales"

This line of code defines my table properties, and it tells Excel what to use for the xValue in the chart. I first use the Item column, then, I define the yValue (I am using the TotalSold column). Then, I specify a chart type. There are 69 chart types available in the cmdlet, all of which correspond to the chart types in Excel. I chose the «ColumnClustered» type for my example.

I then add a chart title, although this is not required. These values are saved to a variable named $ChartData. The next piece to add to the export cmdlet is this chart definition:

$data | Export-Excel C:tempExcelDemo.xlsx -Append -WorksheetName FruitSalesChart -ExcelChartDefinition $ChartData -AutoNameRange -show -Title "Fruit Sales"

Let’s walk through this example. First, I send the $data variable to the Export-Excel cmdlet. The $data variable is our sales data. The syntax for Export-Excel is a continuation from my previous example. I export and append this to a spreadsheet named «ExcelDemo.xlsx.» I create new worksheet tab named FruitSalesChart. This is all code we saw in the previous examples.

Then, I am add in the chart definition I created earlier by calling the $ChartData variable. Finally, I tell Excel that I want an auto name range. The -show parameter auto opens the spreadsheet after I create it.

Editing existing data in an Excel spreadsheet

I find it so easy to export data from PowerShell to Excel that I default to the Export-Excel cmdlet for much of my work. However, you can also update individual data values in an existing spreadsheet. I will connect to the spreadsheet that I used in the previous examples. To connect, use the Open-ExcelPackage cmdlet.

$ExcelPkg = Open-ExcelPackage -Path  "C:tempExcelDemo.xlsx"

I can start to work with the data after opening the file.

The first five rows constitute the worksheet tabs I created earlier in the spreadsheet. I can view the data in any of the tabs with some simple code.

#Let's access the data in the "PeopleFormatted" worksheet
$WorkSheet = $ExcelPkg.Workbook.Worksheets["PeopleFormatted"].Cells
$WorkSheet[3,1] | select value

Value
-----
Jeremy

$WorkSheet[3,2] | select value

Value
-----
Loxahatchee

The code above probably doesn’t make much sense without a visual reference. Have a look at this screen cap below, which should help explain the code.

In the first code example, I called $WorkSheet[3,1] . If you look at the Excel spreadsheet, «3» represents the 3rd row. «1» represents the first column (starting from left of column A).

In the second code example, I called $WorkSheet[3,2] which is Row 3, Column2 (column B in spreadsheet).

Inserting a new value into the Excel data cell is done with a similar set of code. I will replace the name «Jeremy» with the name «Robert».

$WorkSheet[3,1].Value = "Robert"

$WorkSheet[3,1] | select value

Value
-----
Robert

It’s that easy to update a field in Excel! However, there’s one catch. This change I just made is still in memory inside PowerShell. The file needs to «closed» for the data to be written back into the file.

Close-ExcelPackage $ExcelPkg

Conclusion and links

Today, I showed you how to import data from an Excel spreadsheet, create a spreadsheet, create a simple chart, and manipulate the imported data in an existing Excel spreadsheet. The ImportExcel module makes these tasks and others operations simple to complete.

I have touched upon a just few of the many complex tasks you can perform with this module. If you would like to learn more, please visit Doug Finke’s GitHub page for many more examples of demo code you can try for yourself. He has a page dedicated to FAQs and a thorough analysis on examples that you should definitely check out.

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Many of the code examples in Doug’s module come from community members looking to use Excel in unique ways. If you have ideas for new ways to use his module, please submit a pull request to his repo so that others can learn from your use case.

As of now, there is no built-in command like CSV (Export-CSV) to export output to the excel file but we can use the Out-File command to export data to excel or any other file format.

Let’s use Out-File to export the output of the Get-Processes command to an excel file.

Get-Process | Out-File C:Tempprocesses.xls

The above command will get all the running processes on the local system to the excel file. Let’s check the output of the excel file. You can see that the output is not in the proper excel format.

One other way is to install the ImportExcel module for excel. It is a very popular module to work with excel files.

To install the ImportExcel module, you need to run the below command to get it installed from the PowerShell gallery.

Install-Module ImportExcel -AllowClobber -Force

Once you install it, you need to import the module in the current PowerShell session if not imported.

Get-Module ImportExcel -ListAvailable | Import-Module -Force -Verbose

Once you have this module loaded in PowerShell, you can run the below command to export output into the excel format.

Get-Process | Export-Excel -Path C:TempProcesses.xlsx

Output

Microsoft Excel is one of those ubiquitous tools most of us can’t escape even if we tried. Many IT professionals use Excel as a little database storing tons of data in various automation routines. What’s the best scenario for automation and Excel? PowerShell and Excel!

Excel spreadsheets have always been notoriously hard to script and automate. Unlike its less-featured (and simpler) CSV file counterpart, Excel workbooks aren’t just simple text files. Excel workbooks required PowerShell to manipulate complicated Component Object Model (COM) objects thus you had to have Excel installed. Not anymore.

Thankfully, an astute PowerShell community member, Doug Finke, created a PowerShell module called ImportExcel for us mere mortals. The ImportExcel module abstracts away all of that complexity. It makes it possible to easily manage Excel workbooks and get down to PowerShell scripting!

In this article, let’s explore what you can do with PowerShell and Excel using the ImportExcel module and a few popular use cases.

Prerequisites

When running the ImportExcel module on a Windows system, no separate dependencies are necessary. However, if you’re working on macOS, you will need to install the mono-libgdiplus package using brew install mono-libgdiplus. All examples in this article will be built using macOS but all examples should work cross-platform.

If you’re using macOS, be sure to restart your PowerShell session before continuing.

Installing the ImportExcel Module

Start by downloading and installing the module via the PowerShell Gallery by running Install-Module ImportExcel -Scope CurrentUser. After a few moments, you’ll be good to go.

Using PowerShell and Excel to Export to a Worksheet

You may be familiar with the standard PowerShell cmdlets Export-Csv and Import-Csv. These cmdlets allow you to read and export PowerShell objects to CSV files. Unfortunately, there’s no Export-Excel and Import-Excel cmdlets. But using the ImportExcel module, you can build your own functionality.

One of the most common requests a sysadmin has is exporting PowerShell objects to an Excel worksheet. Using the Export-Excel cmdlet in the ImportExcel module, you can easily make it happen.

For example, perhaps you need to find some processes running on your local computer and get them into an Excel workbook.

The Export-Excel cmdlet accepts any object exactly the way Export-Csv does. You can pipe any kind of object to this cmdlet.

To find processes running on a system with PowerShell, use the Get-Process cmdlet which returns each running process and various information about each process. To export that information to Excel, use the Export-Excel cmdlet providing the file path to the Excel workbook that will be created. You can see an example of the command and screenshot of the Excel file generated below.

Get-Process | Export-Excel -Path './processes.xlsx'

Congrats! You’ve now exported all the information just like Export-Csv but, unlike Export-Csv, we can make this data a lot fancier. Let’s make sure the worksheet name is called Processes, the data is in a table and rows are auto-sized.

By using the AutoSize switch parameter to autosize all rows, TableName to specify the name of the table that will include all the data and the WorksheetName parameter name of Processes, you can see in the screenshot below what can be built.

Get-Process | Export-Excel -Path './processes.xlsx' -AutoSize -TableName Processes -WorksheetName Proccesses

The Export-Excel cmdlet has a ton of parameters you can use to create Excel workbooks of all kinds. For a full rundown on everything Export-Excel can do, run Get-Help Export-Excel.

Using PowerShell to Import to Excel

So you’ve exported some information to a file called processes.xlsx in the previous section. Perhaps now you need to move this file to another computer and import/read this information with PowerShell and Excel. No problem. You have Import-Excel at your disposal.

At its most basic usage, you only need to provide the path to the Excel document/workbook using the Path parameter as shown below. You’ll see that it reads the first worksheet, in this case, the Processes worksheet, and returns PowerShell objects.

Import-Excel -Path './processes.xlsx'

Maybe you have multiple worksheets in an Excel workbook? You can read a particular worksheet using the WorksheetName parameter.

Import-Excel -Path './processes.xlsx' -WorkSheetname SecondWorksheet

Do you need to only read certain columns from the Excel worksheet? Use the HeaderName parameter to specify only those parameters you’d like to read.

Import-Excel -Path './processes.xlsx' -WorkSheetname Processes -HeaderName 'CPU','Handle'

The Import-Excel cmdlet has other parameters you can use to read Excel workbooks of all kinds. For a full rundown on everything Import-Excel can do, run Get-Help Import-Excel.

Using PowerShell to Get (and Set) Excel Cell Values

You now know how to read an entire worksheet with PowerShell and Excel but what if you only need a single cell value? You technically could use Import-Excel and filter out the value you need with Where-Object but that wouldn’t be too efficient.

Instead, using the Open-ExcelPackage cmdlet, you can “convert” an Excel workbook into a PowerShell object which can then be read and manipulated. To find a cell value, first, open up the Excel workbook to bring it into memory.

$excel = Open-ExcelPackage -Path './processes.xlsx'

The Open-ExcelPackage is similar to using New-Object -comobject excel.application if working directly with COM objects.

Next, pick the worksheet inside of the workbook.

$worksheet = $excel.Workbook.Worksheets['Processes']

This process is similar to the COM object way of opening workbooks with excel.workbooks.open.

Once you have the worksheet assigned to a variable, you can now drill down to individual rows, columns, and cells. Perhaps you need to find all cell values in the A1 row. You simply need to reference the Cells property providing an index of A1 as shown below.

$worksheet.Cells['A1'].Value

You can also change the value of cells in a worksheet by assigning a different value eg. $worksheet.Cells['A1'] = 'differentvalue'

Once in memory, it’s important to release the Excel package using the Close-ExcelPackage cmdlet.

Close-ExcelPackage $excel

Converting Worksheets to CSV Files with PowerShell and Excel

Once you have the contents of an Excel worksheet represented via PowerShell objects, “converting” Excel worksheets to CSV simply requires sending those objects to the Export-Csv cmdlet.

Using the processes.xlsx workbook created earlier, read the first worksheet which gets all of the data into PowerShell objects, and then export those objects to CSV using the command below.

Import-Excel './processes.xlsx' | Export-Csv -Path './processes.csv' -NoTypeInformation

If you now open up the resulting CSV file, you’ll see the same data inside of the Processes worksheet (in this example).

Converting Multiple Worksheets

If you have an Excel workbook with multiple worksheets, you can also create a CSV file for each worksheet. To do so, you can find all the sheets in a workbook using the Get-ExcelSheetInfo cmdlet. Once you have the worksheet names, you can then pass those names to the WorksheetName parameter and also use the sheet name as the name of the CSV file.

Below you can the example code needed using PowerShell and Excel.

## find each sheet in the workbook
$sheets = (Get-ExcelSheetInfo -Path './processes.xlsx').Name
## read each sheet and create a CSV file with the same name
foreach ($sheet in $sheets) {
	Import-Excel -WorksheetName $sheet -Path './processes.xlsx' | Export-Csv "./$sheet.csv" -NoTypeInformation
}

Conclusion

Using PowerShell and Excel, you can import, export, and manage data in Excel workbooks exactly like you would CSVs without having to install Excel!

In this article, you learned the basics of reading and writing data in an Excel workbook but this just scratches the surface. Using PowerShell and the ImportExcel module, you can create charts, pivot tables, and leverage other powerful features of Excel!

В PowerShell для экспорта массивов данных в CSV файлы можно использовать командлет Export-CSV. В этой статье мы покажем, как экспортировать данные в CSV файл и добавить в него дополнительные строки.

CSV формат представляет собой текстовый файл для хранения табличных данных, в котором значения разделены специальным символом-разделителем. Командлет Export-CSV преобразует полученный объект PowerShell в список строк с разделителями и сохраняет эти строки в указанный файл.

Следующая команда экспортирует список служб Windows в CSV файл:

Get-Service |select-object Name,DisplayName,Status | Export-CSV "C:PSservices.CSV" -NoTypeInformation -Encoding UTF8

Откройте полученный CSV файл с помощью любого текстового редактора. Как вы видите, в первой строке указаны названия столбцов (атрибуты объекта PowerShell, в нашем примере вы выбрали определенные поля с помощью select-object), и далее построчно идут данные, разделенные запятыми.

По-умолчанию в качестве разделителя (делиметера) в CSV используется запятая. Вы можете задать другой разделитель (точку с запятой, двоеточие и т.д.) с помощью параметра –Delimiter.

Например, укажем что в качестве разделителя нужно использовать точку с запятой:

Get-Service | Export-CSV "C:PSservices.CSV" -NoTypeInformation -Encoding UTF8 -Delimiter ";"

Вы можете использовать разделитель в зависимости от региональных настроек Windows. Для этого используется параметр -UseCulture.

Get-Process | Export-Csv "c:psprocess.csv" -UseCulture

По умолчанию командлет Export-CSV создает новый CSV файл (если файл уже существует, он перезаписывается/заменяется новым). Если вы хотите добавить новые строки в уже существующий CSV файл, нужно использовать параметр -Append.

Например, вы хотите по расписанию запускать PowerShell скрипт, который проверяет свободное место на диске и добавляет текущее значение в CSV файл:

$cur_time=get-date -Format u
$freedisksize=Get-CimInstance -Class Win32_LogicalDisk |Where-Object {$_.DeviceID -eq "C:"} |select DeviceID,FreeSpace

Теперь нужно добавить дату в таблицу (объект) в качестве одного из полей:

$freedisksize| add-member -membertype NoteProperty -name Date -value  $cur_time

Экспорт объекта PowerShell в CSV файл:

$freedisksize| Export-Csv -Path C:psfreespace.csv -Delimiter ";" -NoTypeInformation -Append

Также вы можете использовать следующие дополнительные параметры Export-CSV:

• -Encoding – позволяет указать кодировку CSV файла (по умолчанию используется utf8NOBOM). В большинстве случае я указываю тут UTF8;
• -Force – перезапишет доступный на чтение файл;
• -NoClobber – не перезаписывать файл, если он существует;
• -Header – добавить заголовок в CSV файл (если он отсутствует);
• -IncludeTypeInformation/-NoTypeInformation –добавить/не добавлять в заголовок файла строку #TYPE с информацией о типе объекта (например,
  #TYPE System.Diagnostics.Process
  или
  #TYPE System.Service.ServiceController
  ). Начиная с PowerShell 6 информация TYPE в заголовке не выводится по-умолчанию;
• —UseQuotes (появился в версии PowerShell Core 7.x) – нужно ли заключать значения в кавычки или нет (AsNeeded/ Always (default)/Never)

В дальнейшем вы можете обрабатывать полученный CSV файл в Excel или других программах.

Командлет Export-CSV часто используется для построения различных табличных выгрузок и отчетов. Ниже несколько примеров полезных отчетов для системного администратора, которые можно сформировать с помощью Export-CSV:

• Сформировать список компьютеров в AD c помощью Get-ADComputer
• Получить информацию о пользователях через Get-ADUser
• Найти неактивных пользователей/компьютеры в домене
• Выгрузить информацию о входах пользователей в Azure
• Экспортировать историю (логи) RDP подключений
• Создать отчет со статусом активации Windows на компьютерах в домене.

Для загрузки (импорта) данных из CSV файла в PowerShell используется командлет Import-CSV.

If you handle any sort of data in your job you’ve likely run into the common PowerShell cmdlets for dealing with data; Import-CSV, Export-CSV, Import-CliXML, and Export-Clixml. Sometimes, automation requires the processing of data. CSV and XML are both great ways to store and send data. The only thing is, no human chooses to manipulate data in CSV or XML. That is, for better or for worse, in the realm of Excel.

Opening in Excel

Excel has the ability to natively open CSV files, the text import wizard can handle copy and pasting of delimited information, and Power Query offers the ability to use as CSV as a data source. The process from PowerShell to Excel is simple. Use the Export-CSV cmdlet to export your data and if you’re lazy, have PowerShell invoke the file to start up Excel.

Get-Process | Export-Csv -Path ~Desktopjunk.csv 
Invoke-Item ~Desktopjunk.csv

There is a better way.

Import Excel

Doug Finke has written a PowerShell module for exporting information directly into Excel. Not simply data but charts, conditional text, Pivot Tables, and much more.

A quick way to tell if there are services you need to look into?

Get-Service | 
    Select-Object -Property DisplayName,Name,Status,StartType | 
    Export-Excel -show -Path ~DesktopJunk.xlsx -AutoFilter -AutoSize -BoldTopRow -ConditionalText $( New-ConditionalText stop New-ConditionalText auto yellow )

Check out the GitHub page for ImportExcel to get all of of the installation instructions as well as demonstrations on exactly how to use it. Automate the Excel reports you’ve been manipulating by hand for all of these years.