PivotGrid Customize Exported Excel File

Updated on Dec 10, 2025

Environment

Product

Progress® Kendo UI® PivotGrid for jQuery

Description

I am playing around with the Excel export of the PivotGrid and would like to know how to:

1. Add borders to the cells
2. Change the background color
3. Align the text of cells that span across several rows to the top

Solution

The PivotGrid triggers its excelExport event that features the generated kendo.ooxml.Workbook. You can use it to accomplich the desired outcome by following the steps below:

1. Loop the sheet rows and columns
2. Use the cells.borderTop, cells.borderBottom, cells.borderRight and cells.borderLeft size and color properties to assign the desired border width and color
3. Use the cells.background property to assign the new color
4. Check if the cell has a rowSpan greater than 1 and use the cells.verticalAlign property to align the text as needed

js

    excelExport: function (e) {
        var sheet = e.workbook.sheets[0];
        for (var i = 0; i < sheet.rows.length; i++) {
            for (var ci = 0; ci < sheet.rows[i].cells.length; ci++) {
                var cell = sheet.rows[i].cells[ci];

                // add borders
                cell.borderTop = { color: "black", size: 1 };
                cell.borderRight = { color: "black", size: 1 };
                cell.borderBottom = { color: "black", size: 1 };
                cell.borderLeft = { color: "black", size: 1 };

                // change the cell background
                cell.background == "#dfdfdf" ? cell.background = "#ffffff": cell.background = "#0080ff";

                // align cells top
                if(cell.rowSpan > 1){
                  	cell.verticalAlign = "top";
                }                  
            }
        }
    },

    <script src="https://unpkg.com/jszip/dist/jszip.min.js"></script>

    <div id="example">
      <button id="export" class="k-button k-button-icontext hidden-on-narrow"><span class="k-icon k-i-excel"></span>Export to Excel</button>
      <div id="pivotgrid" class="hidden-on-narrow"></div>

      <div class="responsive-message"></div>

      <script>
        $(document).ready(function () {
          var pivotgrid = $("#pivotgrid").kendoPivotGrid({
            excelExport: function (e) {
              var sheet = e.workbook.sheets[0];
              for (var i = 0; i < sheet.rows.length; i++) {
                for (var ci = 0; ci < sheet.rows[i].cells.length; ci++) {
                  var cell = sheet.rows[i].cells[ci];
                  // add borders
                  cell.borderTop = { color: "black", size: 1 };
                  cell.borderRight = { color: "black", size: 1 };
                  cell.borderBottom = { color: "black", size: 1 };
                  cell.borderLeft = { color: "black", size: 1 };

                  // change cell background
                  cell.background == "#dfdfdf" ? cell.background = "#ffffff": cell.background = "#0080ff";

                  // align cells top
                  if(cell.rowSpan > 1){
                  	cell.verticalAlign = "top";
                  }

                }
              }
            },
            excel: {
              fileName: "Kendo UI PivotGrid Export.xlsx",
              proxyURL: "https://demos.telerik.com/service/v2/core/export",
              filterable: true
            },
            filterable: true,
            sortable: true,
            columnWidth: 200,
            height: 580,
            dataSource: {
              type: "xmla",
              columns: [{ name: "[Date].[Calendar]", expand: true }, { name: "[Product].[Category]" } ],
              rows: [{ name: "[Geography].[City]", expand: true }],
              measures: ["[Measures].[Reseller Freight Cost]"],
              transport: {
                connection: {
                  catalog: "Adventure Works DW 2008R2",
                  cube: "Adventure Works"
                },
                read: "https://demos.telerik.com/service/v2/olap/msmdpump.dll"
              },
              schema: {
                type: "xmla"
              },
              error: function (e) {
                alert("error: " + kendo.stringify(e.errors[0]));
              }
            }
          }).data("kendoPivotGrid");

          $("#export").click(function() {
            pivotgrid.saveAsExcel();
          });
        });
      </script>
      <style>
        #export
        {
          margin: 0 0 10px 1px;
        }
      </style>
    </div>