Merge Files

Introduction

Aspose.Cells provides different ways for merging files. For simple files with data, formatting, and formulas, the Workbook.combine() method can be used to combine several workbooks, and the Worksheet.copy() method can be used to copy worksheets into a new workbook. These methods are easy to use and effective, but if you have a lot of files to merge, you might find that they take a lot of system resources. To avoid this, use the CellsHelper.mergeFiles static method, a more efficient way to merge several files.

Merge Files Using Aspose.Cells

The following sample code illustrates how to merge large files using the CellsHelper.mergeFiles method. It takes two simple but large files, MyBook1.xls and MyBook2.xls. The files contain formatted data and formulas only.

The CellsHelper.mergeFiles method only supports merging data, styles, formatting, and formulas. Objects like charts, pictures, comments or other objects might not be merged using this method. Moreover, a cached file is used to store temporary data for the process.

// For complete examples and data files, please go to https://github.com/aspose-cells/Aspose.Cells-for-Java
String dataDir = Utils.getSharedDataDir(MergeFiles.class) + "CellsHelperClass/";
		
// Create an Array (length=2)
String[] files = new String[2];
// Specify files with their paths to be merged
files[0] = dataDir + "Book1.xls";
files[1] = dataDir + "Book2.xls";

// Create a cachedFile for the process
String cacheFile = dataDir + "test.txt";
// Output File to be created
String dest = dataDir + "MergeFiles_out.xls";

// Merge the files in the output file
CellsHelper.mergeFiles(files, cacheFile, dest);

// Now if you need to rename your sheets, you may load the output file
Workbook workbook = new Workbook(dataDir + "MergeFiles_out.xls");

int cnt = 1;

// Browse all the sheets to rename them accordingly
for (int i = 0; i < workbook.getWorksheets().getCount(); i++) {
	workbook.getWorksheets().get(i).setName("Sheet1" + cnt);
	cnt++;
}
// Re-save the file
workbook.save(dataDir + "MergeFiles1_out.xls");