Laravel Excel is designed at being a Laravel-flavoured PhpSpreadsheet. It is a manageable and elegant wrapper around PhpSpreadsheet to simplify exports and imports. PhpSpreadsheet is a php based library that enables you to read and write different spreadsheet file formats, like Excel and LibreOffice Calc. Laravel Excel has the following features:

• Easily export collections to Excel.
• Export queries with automatic chunking for better performance.
• Queue exports for better performance.
• Easily export Blade views to Excel.
• Easily import to collections.
• Read the Excel file in chunks.
• Handle the import inserts in batches.

Requirements

• PHP: ^7.2 |^8.0
• Laravel: ^5.8
• PhpSpreadsheet: ^1.15
• PHP extension php_zip enabled
• PHP extension php_xml enabled
• PHP extension php_gd2 enabled
• PHP extension php_iconv enabled
• PHP extension php_simplexml enabled
• PHP extension php_xmlreader enabled
• PHP extension php_zlib enabled

Installation

You can install Laravel Excel via composer. You’ve to run this command for the installation.

composer require maatwebsite/excel

After the installation, the Maatwebsite\Excel\ExcelServiceProvider is auto-discovered and registered by default. But if you want to register it yourself, add the ServiceProvider in config/app.php:

'providers' => [
    /*
     * Package Service Providers...
     */
    Maatwebsite\Excel\ExcelServiceProvider::class,
]

The Excel facade is also auto-discovered. If you want to add it manually, add the Facade in config/app.php:

'aliases' => [
    ...
    'Excel' => Maatwebsite\Excel\Facades\Excel::class,
]

Next, you’ve to publish the config, run the vendor publish command:

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Maatwebsite\Excel\ExcelServiceProvider"

This will generate a new config file named config/excel.php.

A quick start!

Export

First, you’ve to create an export class in app/Exports. You can do this by utilizing the make:export command.

php artisan make:export UsersExport --model=User

The file can be found in app/Exports:

If you prefer to generate the export manually, you can generate the following in app/Exports:

<?php
namespace App\Exports;

use App\Models\User;
use Maatwebsite\Excel\Concerns\FromCollection;

class UsersExport implements FromCollection
{
    public function collection()
    {
        return User::all();
    }
}

In your controller you can call this export now:

<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use App\Exports\UsersExport;
use Maatwebsite\Excel\Facades\Excel;

class UsersController extends Controller 
{
    public function export() 
    {
        return Excel::download(new UsersExport, 'users.xlsx');
    }
}

And finally, add a route to be able to access the exports.

Route::get('users/export/', 'UsersController@export');

Find your users.xlsx in your downloads folder!

Import

Create an import class in app/Imports. You can do this by utilizing the make:import command.

php artisan make:import UsersImport --model=User

The file can be found in app/Imports.
If you prefer to create the import manually, you can create the following in app/Imports:

<?php
namespace App\Imports;

use App\Models\User;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Hash;
use Maatwebsite\Excel\Concerns\ToModel;

class UsersImport implements ToModel
{
    /**
     * @param array $row
     *
     * @return User|null
     */
    public function model(array $row)
    {
        return new User([
           'name'     => $row[0],
           'email'    => $row[1], 
           'password' => Hash::make($row[2]),
        ]);
    }
}

In your controller you can call this import now:

use App\Imports\UsersImport;
use Maatwebsite\Excel\Facades\Excel;
use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;

class UsersController extends Controller 
{
    public function import() 
    {
        Excel::import(new UsersImport, 'users.xlsx');
        
        return redirect('/')->with('success', 'All good!');
    }
}

These are the basic things about this package, You can learn more about its advanced usage from its documentation on Github.