Autofit Excel Column Width using PowerShell

Tagged: PowerShell

Problem#

In this blog post, we will show you how to autofit excel column width using PowerShell.

As the context, our original columns will look truncated as follows:

And after autofit the columns we will be able to see the content of every cell.

Using Excel Com Object#

After creating the object, we will open the Excel file to get workbook and worksheet object we want to manipulate. Then, we will autofit entire columns width within used range at the first worksheet using AutoFit method.

try {
    # Open excel file
    $excel = New-Object -ComObject Excel.Application
    $workbook = $excel.Workbooks.Open("C:\Scripts\Test.xlsx")
    
    # Autofit columns width at specific worksheet 
    $workbook.Worksheets.Item(1).UsedRange.Cells.EntireColumn.AutoFit()

    # Save excel file
    $workbook.Save()    
}
finally {
    # Close excel file
    $workbook.Close()

    $excel.Quit()
    [System.Runtime.Interopservices.Marshal]::ReleaseComObject($excel)    
}

We enclose the code above with try-finally block because we want to make sure it will release the resource after modifying Excel that is performed at finally block.

Using ImportExcel Module#

ImportExcel is an external module that is built based on EPPlus which is a very well-known library to work with Excel spreadsheets in .NET.

Before using ImportExcel module, we have to install it.

Install-Module -Name ImportExcel

And then following previous solution pattern, we have to create Excel object first before autofit columns using AutoFitColumns method.

try {
    # Import the module
    Import-Module ImportExcel

    # Open excel file
    $excel = Open-ExcelPackage -Path "C:\Scripts\Test.xlsx"

    # Autofit columns width at specific worksheet 
    $excel.Workbook.Worksheets[1].Cells.AutoFitColumns()
}
finally {
    # Close excel file
    Close-ExcelPackage $excel    
}

Similar to previous solution, we enclose the script with try-finally block to avoid memory leak.

Using PSExcel Module#

PSExcel is another module based on EPPlus library. You can find all the examples in github repository.

Before using this module, we have to install it.

Install-Module -Name PSExcel

In order to use the object, we must import the module first. Then, we create Excel object by specifying the path of our Excel file. This object will be used to get the first worksheet whose cells will be autofitted.

try {
    # Import the module
    Import-Module PSExcel

    # Open excel file
    $excel = New-Excel -Path 'C:\Scripts\Test.xlsx'

    # Autofit columns width at specific worksheet 
    $excel.Workbook.Worksheets[1].Cells.AutoFitColumns()

    # Save excel file
    $excel | Save-Excel
}
finally {
    $excel | Close-Excel
}

We also enclose the script with try-finally block to avoid memory leak.

Conclusion#

To autofit excel columns width using PowerShell, we can use excel module/libraries to manipulate excel.

We can use Excel Com Object which is based on .NET Framework. We can also use PowerShell external modules like PSExcel and ImportExcel. ImportExcel is an excellent module which is based on EPPlus library, a well-known C# libary for woking with Excel from .NET.

PSExcel is the alternative of ImportExcel module. PSExcel is also based on EPPlus but this module is no longer maintained as stated in its GitHub repository. If it doesn’t provide functionality that you need, you should contribute to the source code by yourself.