Update 2019-06-01:

PHPExcel library has been deprecated. Use PhpSpreadsheet instead. PhpSpreadsheet is the next version of PHPExcel. I have converted the code below using PhpSpreadsheet library. The code can be found here.

Setup

Download version 1.8.2 from https://github.com/PHPOffice/PHPExcel/releases.
Uncompress the file.
Change the paths of PHPExcel library in the code below to match yours.

Export Excel file to CSV

<?php
/**
  Description: Export Excel file to CSV using PHPExcel library.
  PHPExcel library:  https://github.com/PHPOffice/PHPExcel
 **/
 
// Error reporting
error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors', TRUE);
ini_set('display_startup_errors', TRUE);
 
// Path to PHPExcel classes
require_once './PHPExcel-1.8.2/Classes/PHPExcel.php';
require_once './PHPExcel-1.8.2/Classes/PHPExcel/IOFactory.php';
 
// Your input Excel file.
$excelFile = './my-excel-file.xls';
 
// Create new PHPExcel object
$objPHPExcel = new PHPExcel();
 
//  Read your Excel workbook
try 
{
    $inputFileType = PHPExcel_IOFactory::identify($excelFile);
    $objReader = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createReader($inputFileType);
    $objPHPExcel = $objReader->load($excelFile);
}
catch(Exception $e)
{
    die('Error loading file "'.pathinfo($excelFile,PATHINFO_BASENAME).'": '.$e->getMessage());
}
 
// Export to CSV file.
$objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objPHPExcel, 'CSV');
$objWriter->setSheetIndex(0);   // Select which sheet.
$objWriter->setDelimiter(';');  // Define delimiter
$objWriter->save('my-excel-file.csv');
 
echo "done";
?>

Output

References

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3895819/csv-export-import-with-phpexcel
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9695695/how-to-use-phpexcel-to-read-data-and-insert-into-database
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6346314/phpexcel-will-not-export-to-csv

PHP, Excel

About the author

Xuan Ngo is the founder of OpenWritings.net. He currently lives in Montreal, Canada. He loves to write about programming and open source subjects.