title: How do you use Excel server-side?
body: <p>A client wants to "Web-enable" a spreadsheet calculation -- the user to specify the values of certain cells, then show them the resulting values in other cells.</p>
  
  <p>(They do NOT want to show the user a "spreadsheet-like" interface. This is not a UI question.)</p>
  
  <p>They have a huge spreadsheet with lots of calculations over many, many sheets.  But, in the end, only two things matter -- (1) you put numbers in a couple cells on one sheet, and (2) you get corresponding numbers off a couple cells in another sheet.  The rest of it is a black box.</p>
  
  <p>I want to present a UI to the user to enter the numbers they want, then I'd like to programatically open the Excel file, set the numbers, tell it to re-calc, and read the result out.</p>
  
  <p>Is this possible/advisable?  Is there a commercial component that makes this easier?  Are their pitfalls I'm not considering?</p>
  
  <p>(I know I can use Office Automation to do this, but I know it's not recommended to do that server-side, since it tries to run in the context of a user, etc.)</p>
  
  <p>A lot of people are saying I need to recreate the formulas in code.  However, this would be staggeringly complex.  </p>