This tutorial demonstrates how to implement the graphing software to dynamically read data from a spreadsheet (in this case an MS Excel Spreadsheet).

This tutorial assumes you have already downloaded and installed at least Version 6.0 of the graphing package.
The latest release can be downloaded here

It is also assumed that you have a basic understanding of how to add a graph to a web page. If not then please see the following page:-
Adding Graphs to Web Pages

In this tutorial we will be using the open source package 'PHP Excel Reader' package. This package can be obtained from:-
http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpexcelreader/

Once downloaded place the following two files into the ./jpowered/graph/ directory:-

• reader.php
• oleread.inc

At the time of writing we had to make the following small change to the reader.php file:- We replaced:-
require_once 'Spreadsheet/Excel/Reader/OLERead.php'; With:-
require_once 'oleread.inc'; A good general article on using the 'PHP Excel Reader' package can be viewed at:- http://devzone.zend.com/article/3336-Reading-and-Writing-Spreadsheets-with-PHP

Directory Structure

In this tutorial you will be create a web page and a couple of configuration files. For the purposes of this tutorial you should create a directory /graphtest/ directory under your web root directory.

This tutorial also assumes that you installed the graphing software directly under the web root
(e.g. /webRootFilePath/jpowered/graph/ )

Step 1 - Create a Spreadsheet

For this tutotial we shall create a simple MS Excel spreadsheet with the following layout in sheet 1:-

Once created, save this as "spreadsheet.xls" and place it on your web server in a directory /graphtest/ under your web root directory

Step 2 - Create Data Function

Create a file named datafunction.php which contains the following:-

<?php function datascript() { $dataLines = array(); // initialise the spreadsheet reader require_once 'reader.php'; $reader = new Spreadsheet_Excel_Reader(); // Set output Encoding. $reader->setOutputEncoding('CP1251'); // read in the spreadsheet $reader->read('../../graphtest/spreadsheet.xls'); // place the data from the spreadsheet into // the dataLines array for use by the graph software // the first column and first row of our spreadsheet are // labels and so we will ignore these // i.e. we will begin reading data from column 2 and row 2 $dataLines = array(); for ($i = 2; $i <= $reader->sheets[0]['numRows']; $i++) { for ($j = 2; $j <= $reader->sheets[0]['numCols']; $j++) { $dataNum = $i-1; $seriesNum = $j-1; $dataLines[] = "data".$dataNum."series".$seriesNum.": ".$reader->sheets[0]['cells'][$i][$j]; } } // return the data lines array to the graphing software return $dataLines; } // Make sure there are no characters (not even a space or return character) // after the following line ?>

Again place this file on your web server in a directory /graphtest/ under your web root directory

Step 3 - Create the Configuration File

Create a file named 'config.txt' and add the following contents to it. This file should then be placed in the /graphtest/ directory.

width: 800 height: 400 quality: very high backgroundcolor: white grid: true axis: true 3d: true ndecplaces: 0 thousandseparator: , barspacing: 2 barwidth: 16 displaybarvalues: false gradientfill: true series1: #BB0000|Product X|left|8|triangle|true|solid| series2: #0000BB|Product Y|left|8|box|true|solid| series3: #FF8800|Product Z|left|8|diamond|true|solid| gridbgcolor: #FFFFCC axiscolor: dark grey floorcolor: light gray gridcolor: grey gridstyle: dotted ylables: true yfont: arial yfontsize: 11 yfontbold: bold yfontitalic: false ylabelcolor: black ylabelpre: $ ylabelpost: titletext: Product Sales titlefont: arial titlefontsize: 14 titlefontbold: bold titlefontitalic: false titlecolor: #8080B0 titleposition: -1,55 xtitletext: 2008 xtitlefont: arial xtitlefontsize: 11 xtitlefontbold: bold xtitlefontitalic: false xtitlecolor: #8080B0 xtitleposition: -1,-1 ytitletext: Value ytitlefont: arial ytitlefontsize: 11 ytitlefontbold: bold ytitlefontitalic: false ytitlecolor: #8080B0 ytitleposition: -1,230 xlabels: January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December xlabelorientation: Up angle xlabeloffset: 0 xlabelcolor: #8080B0 xlabelfont: arial xlabelfontsize: 10 xlabelfontbold: false xlabelfontitalic: false legend: true legendstyle: horizontal legendbgcolor: #EEEEEE legendbordercolor: #CCCCFF legendtextcolor: #8080B0 legendtitle: legendfont: arial legendfontsize: 11 legendfontbold: false legendfontitalic: false legendposition: -1,64 // for a full explanation of these parameters see:- // http://www.jpowered.com/php-scripts/adv-graph-chart/documentation/configurationOptions.htm

Notes: This config.txt file contains the parameters which determine certain aspects of the graph like colors and fonts. For the function and options of each parameter see the following page:-
Graph Parameters »

Step 4 - Create the HTML page

Add this HTML code to your page (replacing [www.YourDomain.com] with the actual domain of your web site. Place this page in the /graphtest/ directory.

<html> <head> <title>Spreadsheet Graph Test</title> </head> <body> <br><br> <div id="graphContent"> <img src="http://[www.YourDomain.com]/jpowered/graph/vertical-cylinder-graph.php? datascript=../../graphtest/datafunction.php& config=../../graphtest/config.txt" width=800 height=400> </div> </body> </html>

Note:The relative file paths are relative to the location of the vertical-cylinder-graph.php file (they are NOT relative to the location of the web page).


Save the web page and load it up to your web server placing it in the /graphtest/ directory.

Final Step - View the page in a browser

Open your web browser and view the page. You should see a Vertical Cylinder Graph with 36 bars plotted (12 for each series).

How it works

When the page loads the graph function is called which in turn runs the function contained within the datafunction.php file

This function then uses the PHP XL Reader to open and extract the data from the spreadsheet. Finally the data is passed to the graphing function and the graph is produced.