Comparative Review:

SoftArtisans ExcelWriter v4 versus
Actuate Formula One e.Spreadsheet Engine v10

By Andrew Mooney, June 27, 2003

Installation The machine used in this review ran the Microsoft Windows XP Professional operating system with Internet Information Server (IIS) and Tomcat J2EE™ Web server. Let's begin by discussing the installation of both products. First, I installed ExcelWriter and the installation went smoothly. The installation program created an IIS virtual directory for the included samples and appropriate shortcuts for help documentation and the sample Web pages on the start menu. Next I installed the e.Spreadsheet Engine and the e.Spreadsheet Designer - this is actually two separate non-interdependent installations. (Just a note: utilization of the e.Spreadsheet Engine does not require the e.Spreadsheet Designer. However, there are some useful features which one would not have access to without it.) I attempted to install the e.Spreadsheet Designer first and received the following error message: "Launch Anywhere Install Error: Can't launch executable. Could not find a suitable Java™ Virtual Machine. See http://java.sun.com to download one. Try re-installing the Java™ VM used by the application." So I went to Sun's Web site and downloaded the latest Java™ Virtual Machine. I installed it and then the e.Spreadsheet Designer installed without any further issues. Next, I installed the e.Spreadsheet Engine and it appeared to install correctly. I say "appeared" because no shortcuts to the documentation and samples, as well as, a virtual directory in IIS were created. Of course, I learned later that the e.Spreadsheet Engine requires a J2EE™ Web server or application server to run and is incompatible with IIS. e.Spreadsheet Engine's documentation was very sketchy on system requirements.

System Requirements SoftArtisans ExcelWriter Server: Windows NT4/2000/XP with IIS or PWS Client: Web Browser and Microsoft Excel Note: In addition to the Windows platform, ExcelWriter also supports the Java™ platform Formula One e.Spreadsheet Designer PC: Windows 98/NT4/2000/XP Formula One e.Spreadsheet Engine Server: Windows NT4/2000/XP, Solaris™ 2.6/7/8, AIX 4.3.3/5.1, HP-UX 11.0/11i, Redhat Linux 6.2/7.1 with Java™ Development Kit and J2EE™ Web Server or Application Server Client: Web Browser, MS Excel (not required for HTML or XML reports) and Java™ Virtual Machine

Samples

The samples that were included with ExcelWriter worked without any effort. Each of ExcelWriter's key features is presented in a sample, showing how they can be used in either Visual Basic .NET or C#. All of the sample programs are nicely organized in folders and are well commented with short descriptions as well. These samples can be run in the online documentation.

e.Spreadsheet, however, was a different story. There were no shortcuts to the samples. And, upon further research, I discovered that I needed to install a J2EE™ Web server. I went ahead and installed Apache Tomcat 4.1. The Formula One e.Spreadsheet JSP Tag Library (f1taginstall.war) was a simple drag and drop operation into the Apache Tomcat /webapps/ directory. I found that none of the samples that used servlets had been compiled and, therefore, were not ready to run out of the box. In order to run a sample you had to change the directory path for the sample spreadsheet in the Java™ code and then compile the sample with a Java™ compiler. However, before being able to compile any of these I had to download and install the Java™ Development Kit (JDK) from Sun. The JDK, in my opinion, did not completely install automatically. After running the setup program I had to add the bin directory to the path for my PC. After all of this I could finally run the servlet samples that were included with e.Spreadsheet Engine.

Feature Comparison

Microsoft Excel has an amazing number of features built-in that allow users to create professional quality reports. Both ExcelWriter and e.Spreadsheet Engine have the ability to use most of these same features that Microsoft Excel users are accustomed to. In view of this, I will be focusing mainly on the differences between these two reporting solutions.

• Since ExcelWriter reads and writes native Excel binary format, ExcelWriter's file types are Excel Workbook (.xls) and Excel Template (.xlt). e.Spreadsheet Engine supported read and write file types are e.Spreadsheet Workbook (.vts), Excel Workbook (.xls) and write-only file types HTML and XML. The HTML and XML write feature allows HTML reports to be generated from a spreadsheet or other data source.
  
  
• With ExcelWriter, you can create styles and then apply these styles to cells or ranges. e.Spreadsheet Engine does not use styles, but you can apply formatting to a range of cells.
  
  
• Both ExcelWriter and e.Spreadsheet Engine can create and insert charts in spreadsheets. When using HTML, the charts generated by e.Spreadsheet Engine can be displayed as gif, rle gif, or png images.
  
  
• With ExcelWriter, you can use SoftArtisans' HotCell Technology to update a server side data source. e.Spreadsheet Engine claims you can update a server side data source, but I could not find any working examples that demonstrated it. The closest thing I found was a demo on their Web site that was set up as an input form for an expense report. When you submit the form your values are shown in html. Actuate says you can easily add these values to a database, but do not demonstrate how to do this.
  
  
• JPG images will not display in e.Spreadsheet Engine, but will display correctly in ExcelWriter. When you embed a GIF or PNG in an e.Spreadsheet Designer workbook and open the file in Excel, the picture displays correctly. But if you insert a picture as a URL, the picture is not displayed. So, you cannot link images to workbooks via a URL if you want to pass them between e.Spreadsheet Designer and Excel.
  
  

ExcelWriter-Only Features

• ExcelWriter natively supports both Windows and Java™ platforms. e.Spreadsheet only supports the Java™ platform.
  
  
• ExcelWriter supports all native Microsoft Excel features, including VBA and macros. e.Spreadsheet does not support these two key features that power-Excel users rely on. When e.Spreadsheet Designer opens Excel files the VBA and macros are discarded, but macros on macro sheets are retained for later export back to Excel. However, e.Spreadsheet Designer cannot execute the macros.
  
  
• Another major Excel feature that is supported by ExcelWriter is pivot tables. It is important to note that e.Spreadsheet Designer does not support pivot tables. When an Excel file containing a pivot table report is imported into e.Spreadsheet Designer, the pivot table report appears as cells filled with data that are not linked to the original source.
  
  

e.Spreadsheet Engine-Only Features

• One of the interesting things about e.Spreadsheet Engine is that you can use an XSLT file to transform a data source into a spreadsheet where you can even add formulas and formatting. However, this can only be setup through an e.Spreadsheet Workbook (.vts) created with the e.Spreadsheet Designer and cannot be accomplished in code.
  
  
• e.Spreadsheet Engine can create and insert drawing objects to spreadsheets like arcs, lines, ovals, polygons, rectangles and form objects such as drop-down lists, checkboxes, text areas, radio buttons, buttons, list boxes. These objects can be locked in place so that the user cannot move them. Patterns or image backgrounds for each object can also be set.
  
  
• e.Spreadsheet Engine has cell validation. However, validation rules are lost when exporting to or importing from Excel.
  
  

More e.Spreadsheet Designer
Compatibility Problems with Excel

1. e.Spreadsheet will not import control objects such as buttons, check boxes, drop-down lists, list boxes, radio buttons, and text areas when opening an Excel file. Likewise, control objects that you create in e.Spreadsheet are not saved when you export the file to Excel format. Also, formatting of drawing objects, like fill patterns and textures, line styles, and line widths, in e.Spreadsheet files might not appear as you originally formatted them when you export the file to Excel.
   
   
2. Defined names that look like cell references, beginning with the letters A through AVLH followed by 1 to 1,073,741,824, created in Excel are incompatible with e.Spreadsheet Designer. Formulas containing those names cannot be entered or edited.
   
   
3. e.Spreadsheet Designer preserves and writes out rotated text in Excel files, but the text rotation may look different in Excel.
   
   
4. When an e.Spreadsheet Designer file with cells that extends beyond row 65536 and column IV is exported to Excel, the data in the extra rows is deleted so Excel can open the file.
   
   
5. e.Spreadsheet Designer displays charts similarly to Excel, however, the automatic axis label algorithm is different. To share files with Excel you have to use another option for the axis label.
   
   
6. e.Spreadsheet Designer opens Excel files containing 3D charts, but converts the charts to 2D charts.
   
   
7. Some e.Spreadsheet Designer math functions do not return exactly the same results as Excel 97 functions. However, e.Spreadsheet Designer is consistent with Excel XP.
   
   

Programming Interface

Both ExcelWriter and e.Spreadsheet Engine will allow you to create or view Excel compatible spreadsheets (including data, charts, images, and formatting) using programming code only. In fact, both program interfaces allow you to accomplish everything from code so that a graphical user interface is not necessary. Except for e.Spreadsheet's Range Query Wizard, everything that can be accomplished in e.Spreadsheet Designer can also be done in code.

I found using ASP scripts with ExcelWriter to be much simpler than using JSP, Java™ Servlets, and Java™ Applets with e.Spreadsheet Engine. An ExcelWriter report can be created using scripts in one ASP Web page. With e.Spreadsheet Engine, some reports can be created using just one JSP Web page and the Formula One JSP Tag Library. But the more complicated reports involving spreadsheets seem to require both Java™ Servlets and Applets in conjunction with a JSP Web Page.

User Interface

Designing reports with ExcelWriter does not require any special training; you simply use a program that most people are familiar with - Microsoft Excel.

e.Spreadsheet Engine has a companion program, e.Spreadsheet Designer, that allows you to create compressed workbook files (.vts) using a graphical interface similar to Excel.

However, learning to use e.Spreadsheet Designer will require some time and there were a few quirks that I found annoying. For example, I love the fill handle in Excel, but with e.Spreadsheet Designer if you start a series of cells containing 1,2,3 and select all three cells and drag the fill handle down it keeps repeating 1,2,3. In Excel you would get the next numbers in the series, 4,5,6, etc.

Summary ExcelWriter and e.Spreadsheet Engine are both powerful Web reporting solutions. I did not test the applications with any benchmark software, but I feel the need to report what was obvious. ExcelWriter's sample Web pages opened quickly, but e.Spreadsheet Engine's Web pages loaded noticeably slower. If you already use Excel, all of your spreadsheets will work with ExcelWriter. On the other hand, converting your spreadsheets to the e.Spreadsheet format will be very time intensive and could be a major headache considering e.Spreadsheet's compatibility problems with Excel. e.Spreadsheet Engine has some very useful features, but the complex programming interface and the compatibility issues between e.Spreadsheet Designer and Excel would make me look elsewhere for a reporting solution. ExcelWriter's easy-to-learn programming interface, the use of Excel to make template spreadsheets, and higher degree of compatibility with Excel would make it a better choice for a Web reporting solution.

Highlights ExcelWriter: Built-in support for pivot tables, VBA, and macros; the ability to update a server-side data source with HotCell Technology; and using Excel to create template spreadsheets. e.Spreadsheet Engine: Ability to create and open e.Spreadsheet Designer compressed workbooks that reduce download time and use of several reporting formats including spreadsheets, HTML and XML.

About the Author

Andrew Mooney is an ASPAlliance columnist and a software developer. He specializes in Microsoft database technologies, especially SQL Server 2000 and Access 2000. He holds all of the Brainbench BCIP certifications, including Web Developer Database, Web Developer Client-Side, and Web Developer Server-Side. You can visit his ASPAlliance column at: http://www.aspalliance.com/andrewmooney.