How does one get Oracle data into MS-Excel?

There are several ways to extract data from Oracle and load it into Microsoft Excel. Here are some:

SQL*Plus

The easiest method is to spool the data from sqlplus to a CSV formatted file and open it in MS-Excel. Here is an example:

set echo off pagesize 0 head off feed off veri off trimspool on
spool data.csv
select COL1 || ',' || COL2 || ',' || COL3 ....
spool off

The resulting spool file (data.csv in our exampel) can now be copied to a Windows machine and opened in Excel.

OO4O

Oracle Objects for OLE (OO4O) can be used to load data into Excel. For more details, see the OO4O FAQ.

3rd Party Tools

Download SQL*XL Lite, a freeware plug-in used to run SQL statements directly from Excel. SQL*XL (formerly Oraxcel) requires OO4O to be installed on your PC.