Displaying charts in Excel using PowerShell - winforms

Question

I have read an input CSV file and generated a chart in PowerShell form.
This is my code:
$datasource = Import-Csv "D:\Users\janaja\Desktop\test.csv"
[void] [Reflection.Assembly]::loadWithPartialName('System.Windows.Forms')
[void][Reflection.Assembly]::loadWithPartialName('System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization')
$datasource = "D:\Users\janaja\Desktop\test.csv"
$outputXLSX = "D:\Users\janaja\Desktop\test.xlsx"
$excel = New-Object -ComObject excel.application
$xlChart=[Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XLChartType]
$workbook = $excel.Workbooks.Add(1)
$worksheet = $workbook.worksheets.Item(1)
$TxtConnector = ("TEXT;" + $datasource)
$Connector = $worksheet.QueryTables.add($TxtConnector,$worksheet.Range("A1"))
$query = $worksheet.QueryTables.item($Connector.name)
$query.TextFileOtherDelimiter = $Excel.Application.International(5)
$query.AdjustColumnWidth = 1
$query.Refresh()
$query.Delete()
$Workbook.SaveAs($outputXLSX,51)
$i = 1
$j=1
while($j -le 20){
$excel.Cells.Item($i, $j).Font.ColorIndex = 3
$excel.Cells.Item($i, $j).Font.Bold = $True
$j++
}
$Chart = New-Object -TypeName
System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization.Charting.Chart
$Chart.Size = '600,750'
$ChartArea = New-Object -TypeName
System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization.Charting.ChartArea
$ChartArea.AxisX.Title = 'VM Name'
$ChartArea.AxisY.Title = 'CPU and Memory Utilization'
$ChartArea.AxisX.lnterval = '1'
$ChartArea.AxisX.LabelStyle.Enabled = $true
$ChartArea.AxisX.LabelStyle.Angle = 90
$Chart.ChartAreas.Add($ChartArea)
$Chart.Series.Add('Memory')
$Chart.Series.Add('CPU')
$Chart.Series['Memory'].ChartType =
[System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization.Charting.SeriesChartType]::Bar
$Chart.Series['CPU'].ChartType =
[System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization.Charting.SeriesChartType]::Bar
Foreach($VM in $datasource)
{
$var1 = $Chart.Series['Memory'].Points.AddXY($VM.VMName,$VM.MemoryGB)
}
Foreach($CPU in $datasource)
{
$var2 = $Chart.Series['CPU'].Points.AddXY($VM.VMName,$VM.CPU)
}
$Title = New-Object -TypeName
System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization.Charting.Title
$Chart.Titles.Add($Title)
$Chart.Titles[O].Text = 'VM details'
$Chart.Anchor = [System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles]::Bottom -bor
[System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles]::Right -bor
[System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles]::Top -bor
[System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles]::Left
$Form = New-Object Windows.Forms.Form
$Form.Text= "VM Memory and CPU usage Chart"
$Form.Width = 600
$Form.Height = 600
$Form.controls.add($Chart)
$Form.Add_Shown({$Form.Activate()})
$Form.ShowDialog()
$Chart.Savelmage($Env:USERPROFILE + "\Desktop\Chart.png", "PNG")
This code converts the file from CSV to Excel format and then reads the CSV file data to display a chart on the Powershell Form.
How do I Generate the same chart which takes only 3 column values out of 14 columns and display a clustered bar chart?

Answer 1

You cannot embed pictures in CSV files the way you probably intend, because CSV is a plaintext format. You could embed a path to a picture file, or you could encode the picture (e.g. using base64 encoding) and include the encoded data. But even with the latter you'd still need a viewer that would decode the encoded data and render them as a picture.
Essentially, what you're asking is not possible.
However, you could use the ImportExcel to create an aribtrary Excel spreadsheet from an existing CSV file. The module supports creating Excel charts as well, which should be able to reproduce a similar chart to the one you're creating with your image. You may also be able to just embed the image file, but I'm not sure if that's possible. You may need to use the much older Excel COM API that ships with Office to do that.