title: Reading an Excel file in PHP
body: <p>I'm trying to read an Excel file (Office 2003). There is an Excel file that needs to be uploaded and its contents parsed.</p>
  
  <p>Via Google, I can only find answers to these related (and insufficient topics): generating Excel files, reading Excel XML files, reading Excel CSV files, or incomplete abandoned projects. I own Office 2003 so if I need any files from there, they are available. It's installed on my box but isn't and can't be installed on my shared host.</p>
  
  <p><b>Edit:</b> so far all answers point to <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/phpexcelreader/" rel="noreferrer">PHP-ExcelReader</a> and/or <a href="https://devzone.zend.com/27/reading-and-writing-spreadsheets-with-php/" rel="noreferrer">this additional article</a> about how to use it.</p>