I have a DataTable in my program which I have previously exported to excel using a CSV file. However, I want to conditionally format the backgroun colour of cells - which obviously needs a new approach.

The issue is this - the computer where the software will run does not have Excel. So I cannot go down the route of calling the Excel api.

Is there an easy way of doing this that I have missed? If not, is the format of Excel files published or how can I achieve this goal?

Thanks.

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EDIT:

For anyone else that is interested, I eventually found [this post](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1742640/exporting-to-excel-the-simple-way-but-not-csv) which provides the simplest method I have found. Works with Excel 2003.