SQL Excel

The points below gives you a brief overview of the SQL Excel Add-in (version 1.2).  

- SQL Excel is an Excel Add-in that can run in Excel 2000, 2002(XP), 2003 and 2007 (Excel for windows..) 

- SQL Excel is a Genuine Freeware so no tricks - NO Ads, NO Spyware, NO Viruses  NO Time limits, NO "Phone Home"... The primary download for the Add-in is from Download.com and they verify the contents of the file for of anything malware related.  The add-in has also been verified by numerous other freeware sites.  I have added a few of these here and will be adding in more as I can.  I am planning to get the add-in digitally signed but for now it is not signed.

- SQL Excel adds easy database access to MS Excel.  SQL Excel has a very easy to use interface and will only take minutes to set up and start to use.  After installing, an Extra Excel Toolbar will be added to your Excel.  This toolbar holds 1 dropdown combobox and 4 different buttons and gives you access to all of the functionality of the Addin.  The combobox will hold your available connections and can be used to quickly connect to and view the available selectable objects within a database.   The additional toolbar is the only interface change you will have in Excel, so there is no Extra Menu for the Add-in (this is deliberate). Also there is no extra entry in your Program List for the add-in.  So you will only have the extra toolbar.   Related point is that even though I hope you wont uninstall it !) uninstalling it is easy (just do it from the Control Panel and then go and delete the SQL Excel Add-in folder).  The add-in installation does NOT install any ADO libraries/MDAC or the MSXML parser (you need to have these already). As they are installation prerequisites and not included in the package install,  Uninstalling the add-in is a simple precedure.  The add-in just references them though through late binding.

- SQL Excel can connect to all standard databases so you can easily consolidate data from different data sources (MS SQL Server, MS Acces, Sybase, Oracle, MYSQL, Firebird etc.).  Use the add-in to quickly import data and then use Excel's power to analyse it in more detail if needed.   To connect to a database once you have set up a connection profile you can quickly connect to database by selecting the database profile name from the dropdown box and hit the "SQL" Button.    When you hit the "SQL" button with a database selected in the dropdown the main SQL Excel form will load and you will see the databases selectable objects (the tables and views) on the right hand side of the form.

- The core functionality of the add-in is the retrieveal of the data into Excel and the "SQL" button on the toolbar loads the main form.  This form has been setup to make it easy to switch between different databases (and providers) and you can switch connection/provider by clicking the combobox towards the top left of the form and selecting an entry (this will disconnect the current connection automatically). To get the data from a database into Excel you execute a query or select statement on the form.   SQL Excel supports two way query building so you can build the query manually by typing it in to the text box or do it the easy way by dragging the relevent objects (tables or views) accrros in the objects area of the form. Then you can click the different options you want in the form and build the query visually in a very similar way than you would do in Microsoft Access or SQL Server 

Figure 4: Example of how the data is imported in excel   (check boxes "Apply Formatting" and "Import Headers" were both checked in this case..)   

- SQLExcel.dll (the core file of the Excel Addin) has a small size (330k), and wont slow your Excel down

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