[SalesForce] Render page as excel, default output is without gridlines

You cannot put images into the excel output with a download link. You need to have a static URL to use the image.

If the attachment is an image you could:

1. Create a controller for the page
2. Have it grab the Attachment and create a document in salesforce out of it
3. Have the vf page output the image using the document url

Then you will have to write a batch to delete the documents on a daily basis to clean things up.

Funny you should ask this - I just submitted a blog yesterday that deals with this. Unfortunately, the blog has not been approved for publishing yet. The short version of the blog is

• Format a spreadsheet in Excel (frozen rows, named ranges, styles etc).
• Save as an Excel XML 2004 document.
• Open in a text editor and add your visualforce bindings.
• Place the raw xml inside a newly created visualforce page that looks like this:

<apex:page id="pg" standardStylesheets="false" controller="ExcelExportController" 
contenttype="application/vnd.ms-excel#TestExport_{!TODAY()}.xls">
    {!xmlheader}
    <!-- your excel output goes here -->
    <apex:outputText value="{!endfile}" escape="false"/>
</apex:page>

Your controller will look something like this:

public with sharing class ExcelExportController {

    public Opportunity[] opportunities {get;set;}
    public Integer oppSize {get;set;}

    //xls variables:
    public String xmlheader {get;set;}
    public String endfile{get;set;}

    public ExcelExportController() {
        xmlheader ='<?xml version="1.0"?><?mso-application progid="Excel.Sheet"?>';
        endfile = '</Workbook>';
        opportunities = [SELECT Id, Name, StageName, Amount FROM Opportunity LIMIT 10];
        oppSize = opportunities.size();
    }
}

The reason you should do this in Excel is that the styles syntax that Excel generates is, to put it bluntly, horrible. Here is the sort of thing you get:

<Style ss:ID="s67">
  <Borders>
    <Border ss:Position="Bottom" ss:LineStyle="Double" ss:Weight="3"/>
    <Border ss:Position="Top" ss:LineStyle="Continuous" ss:Weight="1"/>
  </Borders>
  <Font ss:Size="14"/>
  <Interior ss:Color="#FFF58C" ss:Pattern="Solid"/>
 </Style>
 <Style ss:ID="s68">
   <Alignment ss:Vertical="Bottom"/>
   <Font ss:Size="12" ss:Bold="1"/>
   <Interior ss:Color="#FFCC99" ss:Pattern="Solid"/>
 </Style>
 <Style ss:ID="s70">
   <Borders>
     <Border ss:Position="Bottom" ss:LineStyle="Double" ss:Weight="3"/>
     <Border ss:Position="Top" ss:LineStyle="Continuous" ss:Weight="1"/>
   </Borders>
   <Font ss:Size="14"/>
   <Interior ss:Color="#FFF58C" ss:Pattern="Solid"/>
   <NumberFormat ss:Format="Percent"/>
  </Style>

...and on and on. No style names. repetition. Yuk.

Any formats you save in the spreadsheet will be maintained on the next export. Obviously you are going to have to add repeats and other apex data.

For my working code page, take a look here