Installing, Building, and Using wxAutoExcel

July 20, 2025 ยท View on GitHub

If you are using vcpkg, wxAutoExcel provides an overlay port, see WXAUTOEXCEL-SRCDIR/build/vcpkg/.

1 Installation

The first step, is to download the source archive or clone the code from GitHub and put it in any directory. If at all possible, please avoid a directory name with spaces in its name, as this can cause problems. In the following text this directory will be referred to as WXAUTOEXCEL-SRCDIR.

2 Building wxAutoExcel

2.1 General information

wxAutoExcel is built in Debug and/or Release configurations with CMake (v3.16+ required), find_package() is employed to find wxWidgets build to use. Microsoft Visual C++ and MinGW (GCC or clang) compilers are supported.

Before building wxAutoExcel, you can change some of its compile-time settings in WXAUTOEXCEL-SRCDIR/include/wx/wxAutoExcel_setup.h. These settings are mostly useful if you don't plan to use some of wxAutoExcel features such as Shapes or Charts and wish to minimize the size of the wxAutoExcel (dynamic) library.

2.2 CMake build options

  • wxAutoExcel_BUILD_SHARED: whether to build static or shared (dll) wxAutoExcel library. BOOL, defaults to the value of BUILD_SHARED_LIBS.
  • wxAutoExcel_BUILD_LINK_WX_SHARED: whether to link to wxWidgets dynamically. When linking dynamically, the wxWidgets_LIB_DIR CMake variable should be set to wxWidgets dll folder and not the lib folder. BOOL, defaults to the value of BUILD_SHARED_LIBS.
  • wxAutoExcel_BUILD_USE_STATIC_RUNTIME: whether to link to the static CRT (and other compiler libraries). This setting must match the setting used when building wxWidgets (wxBUILD_USE_STATIC_RUNTIME) and cannot be used when building wxAutoExcel as shared or linking to wxWidgets dynamically. BOOL, defaults to OFF, unless using an MSVC generator with CMAKE_MSVC_RUNTIME_LIBRARY set to use a statically-linked CRT library.
  • wxAutoExcel_BUILD_USE_PRECOMPILED: whether to use precompiled headers. BOOL, defaults to ON.
  • wxAutoExcel_BUILD_VENDOR: Short string identifying the library builder (used in the DLL name). STRING, defaults to custom.
  • wxAutoExcel_BUILD_INSTALL: whether to install wxAutoExcel. BOOL, defaults to OFF.
  • wxAutoExcel_BUILD_SAMPLES: whether to build the bundled samples. BOOL, defaults to the value of PROJECT_IS_TOP_LEVEL.

2.3 Example

This example shows how to build wxAutoExcel, using MSVS 2022 CMake generator in Debug and Release shared configurations. Let's say wxAutoExcel source directory (WXAUTOEXCEL-SRCDIR) is c:/dev/libs/wxAutoExcel, the build directory (WXAUTOEXCEL-BUILDDIR) is c:/dev/libs/wxAutoExcel-build-vc17-x64-DLL, and the installed directory (WXAUTOEXCEL-INSTALLDIR) is c:/dev/libs/wxAutoExcel-vc17-x64-DLL-installed. All following commands are to be run from WXAUTOEXCEL-BUILDDIR.

Configure

cmake -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON -DwxAutoExcel_BUILD_INSTALL=ON -S ../wxAutoExcel -B .

Build

cmake --build . --config Debug
cmake --build . --config Release

Install (optional)

We can install Debug and Release builds in the same folder:

cmake --install . --config Debug --prefix ../wxAutoExcel-vc17-x64-DLL-installed
cmake --install . --config Release --prefix ../wxAutoExcel-vc17-x64-DLL-installed

2.4 Library naming scheme

The names of static and import libraries include version and indication whether this is a Debug configuration (those have d after the version number). The names of shared (DLL) libraries include more detailed version and provide also compiler, architecture, and Vendor identification.

3 Building applications using wxAutoExcel

3.1 CMake with find_package()

The first step is calling find_package(wxAutoExcel REQUIRED CONFIG) and the second step is calling target_link_libraries(), using wxAutoExcel::wxAutoExcel as the library target name. For example, your application CMakeLists.txt may look like this

# .....
find_package(wxWidgets 3.2 REQUIRED COMPONENTS core base)
if(wxWidgets_USE_FILE)
  include(${wxWidgets_USE_FILE})
endif()

find_package(wxAutoExcel 2.0 REQUIRED CONFIG)
# .....
target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} PRIVATE wxAutoExcel::wxAutoExcel ${wxWidgets_LIBRARIES})

If you did not install wxAutoExcel to a location known to CMake, you may need to tell CMake where to find it. There are many ways to do that, perhaps the easiest one may be setting CMake variable wxAutoExcel_ROOT (requires declaring minimum CMake version as 3.12 or newer) to WXAUTOEXCEL-BUILDDIR or WXAUTOEXCEL-INSTALLDIR. For example, when building your application from its build folder, wxAutoExcel_ROOT may be set like this

cmake -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -DwxAutoExcel_ROOT=c:/dev/libs/wxAutoExcel-vc17-x64-DLL-installed -S ../MyApp -B .

3.2 CMake with add_subdirectory()

The first step is calling add_subdirectory() and the second step is calling target_link_libraries(), using wxAutoExcel::wxAutoExcel as the library target name.

For example, if you have wxAutoExcel source code in your application's folder 3rdparty/wxAutoExcel (e.g., c:/dev/apps/MyApp/3rdparty/wxAutoExcel), your application CMakeLists.txt may look like this

# ..... make sure wxWidgets is available .....
# maybe set some of wxAutoExcel_BUILD options here....
add_subdirectory(3rdparty/wxAutoExcel)
# .....
target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} PRIVATE wxAutoExcel::wxAutoExcel ${wxWidgets_LIBRARIES})

3.3 CMake with FetchContent

The first step is calling include(FetchContent), FetchContent_Declare(), and FetchContent_MakeAvailable(); the second step is calling target_link_libraries(), using wxAutoExcel::wxAutoExcel as the library target name.

For example, your application CMakeLists.txt may look like this

# ..... make sure wxWidgets is available .....
include(FetchContent)
FetchContent_Declare(
  wxAutoExcel
  GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/PBfordev/wxAutoExcel
  GIT_TAG        4396ab0d5ec75e4ebaedf97f832213d28ba457aa # use the actual desired tag instead
)
# maybe set some of wxAutoExcel_BUILD options here....
FetchContent_MakeAvailable(wxAutoExcel)
# .....
target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} PRIVATE wxAutoExcel::wxAutoExcel ${wxWidgets_LIBRARIES})

If you do not wish to build your application with CMake, then in addition to the standard wxWidgets-related and other settings, you need to:

  • Add WXAUTOEXCEL-SRCDIR/include or WXAUTOEXCEL-INSTALLDIR/include to the compiler include path.
  • Add WXAUTOEXCEL-BUILDDIR/lib or WXAUTOEXCEL-INSTALLDIR/lib to the linker libraries path.
  • If you are using the DLL build of wxAutoExcel, add WXUSINGDLL_WXAUTOEXCEL to the preprocessor definitions.
  • Finally, add the appropriate wxAutoExcel (import) library to the list of libraries to link with, for Debug and Release targets separately.