>>I'm aware of the office automation but it requires the installation of Office which I don't want. I just want to avoid any other third party component.
No automation and no 3rd party! That will be hard.
If you change your mind and want to try a good 3rd party component, try
http://www.aspose.com/cate
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by: ThatDeadDudePosted on 2009-09-15 at 06:48:05ID: 25334813
It is possible, but it won't be easy, or short, I think. The developers of OpenOffice have produced documentation for the file format: see http://sc.openoffice.org/e xcelfilefo rmat.pdf
en-us/libr ary/aa3382 05.aspx
For Excel 2007, Microsoft changed formats completely. They went for an open format based on XML and they have provided documentation themselves. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/
To be honest, I don't think your project will be viable unless you are willing to use third-party libraries or are willing to work on it for a very significant length of time.