Build a React Excel-like Grid with Ignite UI 

Basic data display no longer cuts the chase in modern enterprise applications. Quite often, they require more than just that. Business users expect rich, interactive data tables that mimic the functionality and familiarity of Microsoft Excel, complete with sorting, filtering, editing, hierarchical data structures, and seamless Excel export. 

If you’re a React developer, building this type of grid from scratch can be daunting. Fortunately, Ignite UI for React offers a comprehensive solution that makes this easy without sacrificing performance or flexibility. 

What Is an Excel-like Grid in React? 

An Excel-like grid in React refers to a data table that replicates essential spreadsheet behaviors and user expectations. Doing this, developers don’t have to embed Excel itself. The key React grid features that define an Excel-style experience include: 

• Sorting columns 
• Excel-like keyboard navigation 
• Filtering using drop-down menus 
• Inline editing 
• Clipboard operations 
• Exporting to Excel-compatible formats 

These features are vital in apps like admin dashboards, Financial apps, ERPs, and analytics platforms. Whether your users are business analysts or SaaS customers, they expect grid components that just work quickly and intuitively. 

The Challenge of Building One from Scratch 

Recreating the React Excel-like grid experience manually is a non-trivial task, especially when considering: 

• Virtualization: Without row/column virtualization, performance degrades quickly with large datasets (10,000+ rows). 
• Excel Export: Generating real Excel files (not just CSVs) that retain data types, formatting, and structure often requires complex external libraries. 
• Advanced Features: Implementing sorting, Excel-style filtering, keyboard navigation, editing, and export together in a cohesive experience usually means stitching together multiple libraries or building from the ground up. 
• Scalability: Custom solutions often become technical debt as features grow. This makes the ReactExcel-like grid harder to maintain or scale across teams or products. 

For most teams, this approach is costly, error-prone, and a bottleneck to shipping fast. 

Why Choose Ignite UI for React 

Ignite UI for React is a comprehensive UI toolkit with a high-performance React Excel-like grid that includes all essential spreadsheet features out of the box. It’s purpose-built for complex data display and enterprise use cases. 

Key features include: 

• High-performance virtualization for massive datasets 
• Hierarchical data display & support (via grouping, hierarchical grid, tree grid, etc.) 
• Built-in Excel export (either true .xlsx format or just CSV) 
• Cell editing, summaries, grouping 
• Custom cell templates 
• Excel-style filtering 
• Column pinning, column hiding, summaries, and more 
• Keyboard navigation support 
• Accessibility and keyboard shortcuts (ARIA-compliant) 

View Data Grid Documentation 

Excel-Style Filtering: How to Enable It 

One of the most useful features for business users is Excel-style filtering, which provides a drop-down menu in the column header with: 

• Filter by value (checkboxes) 
• Filter by condition (equals, contains, greater than, etc.) 
• Custom filter dialogs 
• Clear filters option 
• And many more 

To enable it in Ignite UI: 

<IgrGrid
    data={nwindData}  
    autoGenerate={true}  
    allowFiltering={true}  
    filterMode="excelStyleFilter">  
</IgrGrid> 

This gives you the familiar Excel-like interface on each column for filtering, without having to wire up your own dropdowns or logic. 

Check out the full documentation for the Ignite UI Grid Excel-Style Filtering here. 

Export to Excel Configuration 

Excel export is an essential feature in enterprise grids, especially when users need to share, archive, or analyze data outside the app. Ignite UI for React makes it easy to export grid data to a fully formatted .xlsx file or a simple .csv file. 

To enable Excel export: 

<IgrGrid autoGenerate={true} data={nwindData}>
    <IgrGridToolbar>
        <IgrGridToolbarActions>
            <IgrGridToolbarExporter exportCSV={true} exportExcel={true}>
            </IgrGridToolbarExporter>
        </IgrGridToolbarActions>
    </IgrGridToolbar>
</IgrGrid>

This will generate a real Excel file with your current dataset, including headers, data types, and grouping (if applicable). No need for external Excel libraries. 

Check out the full documentation for the Ignite UI Grid Export to Excel Service here. 

Excel-Style Keyboard Navigation Setup 

Excel users expect fluid, intuitive keyboard interaction. However, replicating that in a web grid requires some custom setup. That’s why Ignite UI for React gives you the flexibility to implement full Excel-style keyboard navigation using event hooks and targeted logic. 

To achieve this, we’ll introduce three functions: 

• cancelGridKeydown, bound to onGridKeydown.
• handleArrowKeydown, bound to onKeyDownCapture.
• handleKeydown, attached to the native keydown event. 

Each function handles a specific part of the Excel-style experience: 

• handleKeydown manages character typing and Enter-based navigation.
• cancelGridKeydown prevents the grid’s default Enter behavior.
• and handleArrowKeydown enables arrow key navigation between editable cells. 

Key behaviors this setup enables: 

• Typing A–Z or 0–9 enters edit mode and starts input immediately.
• Pressing Enter or Shift + Enter moves down/up while committing the edit.
• Arrow keys move across editable cells while preserving edit mode.
• Navigation skips group headers, summaries, and non-editable cells.

This setup delivers a smooth, Excel-like navigation experience, which is critical for users who work primarily with the keyboard or prefer keyboard-first UIs for data entry and review. 

Why Ignite UI Grid Is Better?  

Unlike lightweight React grids and table libraries or custom DIY setups, Ignite UI is built for scalable enterprise applications. Here’s what sets it apart: 

• Performance: Virtualized rendering for lightning-fast interactions, even with 100k+ rows 
• Feature-complete: Excel export, grouping, summaries, filters, sorting, paging, and custom templates. Everything is built in.
• Highly customizable: With theme support, CSS overrides, column templates, and localization, you have all the styling and configuration tools necessary to match your app’s look and feel, down to the cell level. 
• Developer-first: TypeScript support, full API docs, and enterprise-grade support options.
• Secure and supported: Battle-tested in the field with dedicated support and frequent updates.

Wrap Up… 

Building a React Excel-like grid isn’t easy but Ignite UI for React makes it surprisingly simple. In minutes, you can integrate a feature-rich, high-performance grid that supports sorting, filtering, editing, Excel-like navigation, and Excel export.