How to: Fill ListObject Controls with Data

Applies to
The information in this topic applies only to the specified Visual Studio Tools for Office projects and versions of Microsoft Office. Document-level projects Excel 2007 Excel 2003 Application-level projects Excel 2007 For more information, see Features Available by Application and Project Type.

You can use data binding as a way to quickly add data to your document. After binding data to a list object, you can disconnect the list object so it displays the data but is no longer bound to the data source.

For a related video demonstration, see How Do I: Create a List in Excel that is Connected to a SharePoint List?.

To bind data to a ListObject control

1. Create a DataTable at the class level.

   Dim table As DataTable = New DataTable("Employees")
   

   System.Data.DataTable table = new System.Data.DataTable("Employees");
   

2. Add sample columns and data in the Startup event handler of the Sheet1 class (in a document-level project) or ThisAddIn class (in an application-level project).

   table.Columns.Add("FirstName", GetType(String))
   table.Columns.Add("LastName", GetType(String))
   table.Columns.Add("Title", GetType(String))
   
   table.Rows.Add("Nancy", "Anderson", "Sales Representative")
   table.Rows.Add("Robert", "Brown", "Sales Representative")
   

   table.Columns.Add("FirstName", typeof(string));
   table.Columns.Add("LastName", typeof(string));
   table.Columns.Add("Title", typeof(string));
   
   table.Rows.Add("Nancy", "Anderson", "Sales Representative");
   table.Rows.Add("Robert", "Brown", "Sales Representative");
   

3. Call the SetDataBinding method and pass in the column names in the order they should appear. The order of the columns in the list object can differ from the order in which they appear in the DataTable.

   list1.AutoSetDataBoundColumnHeaders = True
   list1.SetDataBinding(table, Nothing, "LastName", "FirstName")
   

   list1.AutoSetDataBoundColumnHeaders = true;
   list1.SetDataBinding(table, null, "LastName", "FirstName");
   

To disconnect the ListObject control from the data source

• Call the Disconnect method of List1.

  list1.Disconnect()
  

  list1.Disconnect();
  

Compiling the Code

This code example assumes you have an existing ListObject named list1 on the worksheet in which this code appears.

See Also

Tasks

How to: Map ListObject Columns to Data

How to: Populate Worksheets with Data from a Database

How to: Populate Documents with Data from Services

Concepts

Extending Word Documents and Excel Workbooks in Application-Level Add-ins at Run Time

Excel Application-Level Add-in Development

Adding Controls to Office Documents at Run Time

ListObject Control

Understanding ListObject Column and Row Order Persistence

Binding Data to Controls in Office Solutions

Other Resources

Controls on Office Documents

Excel Host Controls