App::import('Vendor', 'PHPExcel/Classes/PHPExcel');
$objPHPExcel = new PHPExcel();
$objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->setTitle('ReceivedMessages');
header('Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel');
$file_name = "kpi_form_".date("Y-m-d_H:i:s").".xls";
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$file_name");
// If you're serving to IE 9, then the following may be needed
header('Cache-Control: max-age=1');
$objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objPHPExcel, 'Excel5');
$objWriter->save('php://output');
When I call above code directly from the browser, the result file is downloaded. But if I make an ajax call to above code, I don't get the download prompt. I can see from console tab that the ajax call was successfully completed and a bunch of random characters is seen in the response data. I'm assuming that is the excel object.
Does anyone know how I can achieve the download excel feature using ajax? I don't want to refresh the page. When the user clicks on the "export" button, there should be an ajax call to the php file and prompt the user to download.