Export to Excel with Command Button

Question

how do I export searched data to excel? or even not yet search?

<apex:page standardController="Account"  Extensions="GoodStandingController" contentType="application/vnd.ms-excel#SalesForceExport.xls" cache="true">
<style type="text/css">
    body {background: #F3F3EC; padding-top: 15px}
</style>

<apex:form >
    <apex:pageBlock title="Search by Date" id="block" mode="edit">
        <apex:pageMessages />
        <apex:pageBlockSection >
            <apex:pageBlockSectionItem >
                <apex:panelGroup >
                    <b>Affiliate ID: </b><apex:param Name="Affiliate ID" id="searchText" value="{!$CurrentPage.parameters.searchText}"/><p/>
                    <b>AsOfDate: </b><apex:param Name="AsOfDate" id="AsOfDate" value="{!$CurrentPage.parameters.AsOfDate}"/> <p/>
                    <apex:commandButton value="Search" action="{!search}" rerender="resultsBlock" status="status"/><p/>
                </apex:panelGroup>
            </apex:pageBlockSectionItem>
        </apex:pageBlockSection>
        <apex:actionStatus id="status" startText="Searching... please WAIT..."/>

        <apex:pageBlockSection title="Good Standing Status as of {!AsOfDate}" showHeader="true" id="resultsBlock" columns="2">
            <apex:pageBlockTable title="Status" value="{!searchResults}" var="o" rendered="{!NOT(ISNULL(searchResults))}">
                <apex:column headerValue="Name">
                    <apex:outputLink value="/{!o.Id}">{!o.Name}</apex:outputLink>
                </apex:column>                        
                    <apex:column value="{!o.AR_Number__c}"/>
    <apex:column >
     <apex:dataTable value="{!o.Good_Standing_Status_History__r}" var="q">
        <apex:column headerValue="Status" value="{!q.Good_Standing_Status_New__c}"/>                          
        <apex:column headerValue="Date" value="{!q.Change_Date__c}"/>              
     </apex:dataTable>
    </apex:column>
            </apex:pageBlockTable>
        </apex:pageBlockSection>

    </apex:pageBlock>
</apex:form>

Answer 1

The options I can think of offhand:

• Conga Composer offers the ability to merge salesforce data into templates, which can be excel files. You can read more on their website.
• Linking to an existing report using the record id as a filter (Related Question describing how to link to a report export)
• Building a .csv file yourself (Related Question creating a .csv blob)