In this article I will explain with an example, how to export Grid (GridView) to Excel file using jQuery in ASP.Net MVC Razor.
The Grid (GridView) will be exported (converted) to Excel file using the jQuery table2excel plugin in ASP.Net MVC Razor.
Note: For beginners in ASP.Net MVC and Entity Framework, please refer my article ASP.Net MVC: Simple Entity Framework Tutorial with example. It covers all the information needed for connecting and configuring Entity Framework.
 
 
Database
I have made use of the following table Customers with the schema as follows. CustomerId is an Auto-Increment (Identity) column.
ASP.Net MVC: Export Grid (GridView) to Excel using jQuery
 
I have already inserted few records in the table.
ASP.Net MVC: Export Grid (GridView) to Excel using jQuery
 
Note: You can download the database table SQL by clicking the download link below.
          Download SQL file
 
 
Entity Framework Model
Once the Entity Framework is configured and connected to the database table, the Model will look as shown below.
ASP.Net MVC: Export Grid (GridView) to Excel using jQuery
 
 
Controller
The Controller consists of following Action method.
Action method for handling GET operation
Inside this Action method, all the records from the Customers table is returned to the View as a Generic List collection.
public class HomeController : Controller
{
    // GET: Home
    public ActionResult Index()
    {
        CustomersEntities entities = new CustomersEntities();
        return View(entities.Customers.ToList());
    }
}
 
 
View
Inside the View, in the very first line the Customer Entity is declared as IEnumerable which specifies that the Model will be available as a Collection.
For displaying the Table records, an HTML Table is used. A loop will be executed over the Model which will generate the HTML Table rows with the Customer Model objects.
Inside the jQuery document ready event handler, the Export Button has been assigned a jQuery Click event handler.
When the Export Button is clicked, the jQuery table2excel plugin is applied to the HTML Table and it is converted (exported) to Excel file. The jQuery table2excel plugin accepts filename parameter which sets the name of the Excel file.
@model IEnumerable<Customer>
 
@{
    Layout = null;
}
<!DOCTYPE html>
 
<html>
<head>
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" />
    <title>Index</title>
</head>
<body>
    <table id="tblCustomers" class="table" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
        <tr>
            <th style="width:80px">Customer Id</th>
            <th style="width:120px">Name</th>
            <th style="width:100px">Country</th>
        </tr>
        @foreach (Customer customer in Model)
        {
            <tr>
                <td>@customer.CustomerId</td>
                <td>@customer.Name</td>
                <td>@customer.Country</td>
            </tr>
        }
    </table>
    <br/>
    <input type="submit" id="btnExport" value="Export"/>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.3/jquery.min.js"></script>
    <script src="~/Scripts/table2excel.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript">
        $(function () {
            $("#btnExport").click(function () {
                $("#tblCustomers").table2excel({
                    filename: "Table.xls"
                });
            });
        });
    </script>
</body>
</html>
 
 
Screenshots
The Grid (GridView)
ASP.Net MVC: Export Grid (GridView) to Excel using jQuery
 
Excel file being downloaded when Export Button is clicked
ASP.Net MVC: Export Grid (GridView) to Excel using jQuery
 
The generated Excel file
ASP.Net MVC: Export Grid (GridView) to Excel using jQuery
 
 
Browser Compatibility

The above code has been tested in the following browsers.

Internet Explorer  FireFox  Chrome  Safari  Opera 

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Downloads
Download Code