Load excel file into PHP_Excel from variable

You must first create a reader for the excel file and then load that file from your constructed reader. Take a look at this for full details.

PHPExcel provides no direct method for loading from a string rather than from a file. As an alternative to actually creating a physical filesystem file for $tmpfile though, you might be able to use php://memory or php://temp

This might not be the most elegant solution but here is how I solved it:

public function fromString($data=null)
{
    $file = tempnam(sys_get_temp_dir(), 'excel_');
    $handle = fopen($file, "w");
    fwrite($handle, $data);
    $return = \PHPExcel_IOFactory::load($file);
    fclose($handle);
    unlink($file);
    return $return;
}