A project workbook with a summary

How it works

1. Separate detail from presentation

   Create Summary first for the opening view, and Delivery for the data table.

2. Calculate in the owning sheet

   Compute remaining days beside each delivery row, then point the summary formulas at those cells.

3. Keep the detail usable

   Add a table and freeze its heading row. Calculate before creating the summary image and saving the workbook.

This is the complete example file used to generate the download. The walkthrough runner creates the output directory and produces the additional previews.

using System.IO;
using OfficeIMO.Drawing;
using OfficeIMO.Excel;

namespace OfficeIMO.Examples.Showcase.Workflows;

/// <summary>Separates delivery detail from a summary with cross-sheet formulas.</summary>
internal static class ProjectWorkbook {
    internal static void Create(string folder) {
        using ExcelDocument document = ExcelDocument.Create(Path.Combine(folder, "example.xlsx"));
        ExcelSheet summary = document.AddWorksheet("Summary");
        ExcelSheet delivery = document.AddWorksheet("Delivery");
        summary.MergeRange("A1:D1");
        summary.Cell(1, 1, "Project workbook / weekly delivery");
        summary.CellFontSize(1, 1, 20);
        summary.CellBold(1, 1, true);
        summary.CellFontColor(1, 1, "17365D");
        string[] labels = { "Discovery", "Build", "Pilot", "Handover" };
        string[] headers = { "Workstream", "Planned days", "Used days", "Remaining" };
        for (int column = 0; column < headers.Length; column++) {
            delivery.Cell(1, column + 1, headers[column]);
            summary.Cell(4, column + 1, headers[column]);
            summary.CellBackground(4, column + 1, "17365D");
            summary.CellFontColor(4, column + 1, "FFFFFF");
            summary.SetColumnWidth(column + 1, column == 0 ? 30 : 22);
            delivery.SetColumnWidth(column + 1, column == 0 ? 30 : 22);
        }
        for (int index = 0; index < labels.Length; index++) {
            int row = index + 2;
            delivery.Cell(row, 1, labels[index]);
            delivery.Cell(row, 2, new[] { 12, 30, 10, 8 }[index]);
            delivery.Cell(row, 3, new[] { 12, 18, 3, 0 }[index]);
            delivery.CellFormula(row, 4, $"B{row}-C{row}");
            summary.Cell(index + 5, 1, labels[index]);
            for (int column = 2; column <= 4; column++) {
                string letter = ((char)('A' + column - 1)).ToString();
                summary.CellFormula(index + 5, column, $"'Delivery'!{letter}{row}");
            }
            summary.CellBackground(index + 5, 4, "E7F6ED");
        }
        delivery.AddTable("A1:D5", true, "DeliveryPlan", ExcelTableStyle.TableStyleMedium2);
        delivery.Freeze(topRows: 1);
        summary.MergeRange("A11:D11");
        summary.Cell(11, 1, "Edit the Delivery sheet; Summary references the same values.");
        document.Calculate();
        summary.Range("A1:D13").ExportImage(OfficeImageExportFormat.Png)
            .Save(Path.Combine(folder, "preview.png"), OfficeImageExportFileConflictPolicy.Replace);
        document.Save();
    }
}

Run it from the source checkout

Clone the OfficeIMO repository and run this command from its root with the .NET 10 SDK. The first run restores the example project's dependencies.

dotnet run --project OfficeIMO.Examples -f net10.0 -- --showcase-workflows --showcase-example excel-project-workbook

The files are written to OfficeIMO.Examples/bin/Debug/net10.0/Documents/Workflows/excel-project-workbook/. To use the example in your application, start with the Excel guide and its package setup.

Continue with another example

• ExcelBudget scenario comparison
• WordProject charter
• PowerPointAn editable project roadmap deck