How to remove all merged cells from an Excel file in php?

I have a Excel file like this:

I wrote a code that allows me to extract all the photos from the xlsx file and insert them in a folder. There are several merged cells in the file and before processing I would like to remove all the merged cells from the Excel file. I tried with $objPHPExcel->setActiveSheetIndex("0")->unmergeCells(); but it doesn't work.

How can I solve my problem?

<?php

//uploaded xlsx file recovery
$xlsx="C:/wamp64/www/Extract_pictures_Excel/xlsx_files/".date('Y_m_d H-i-s')."_file.xlsx";
move_uploaded_file($_FILES["mon_fichier"]["tmp_name"],$xlsx);

require_once 'PHPExcel/Classes/PHPExcel/IOFactory.php';
$objPHPExcel = PHPExcel_IOFactory::load($xlsx);

//Unique name folder for the pictures
$dirname = uniqid();
mkdir("C:/wamp64/www/Extract_pictures_Excel/pictures_folders/$dirname/");

$sheet = $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet();

//Unmerge all cells
foreach($sheet->getMergeCells() as $cells) 
{ 
    $sheet->unmergeCells($cells);
    // var_dump($cells);
}
   
$objWriter = new PHPExcel_Writer_Excel2007($objPHPExcel); 
$objWriter->save('./unmerged_files/unmerged.xlsx');

//reading the xlsx file

foreach ($sheet->getDrawingCollection() as $drawing ) {

    
    if ($drawing instanceof PHPExcel_Worksheet_MemoryDrawing) {
        ob_start();
        call_user_func(
            $drawing->getRenderingFunction(),
            $drawing->getImageResource()
        );
        $imageContents = ob_get_contents();
        ob_end_clean();
        switch ($drawing->getMimeType()) {
            case PHPExcel_Worksheet_MemoryDrawing::MIMETYPE_PNG :
                $extension = 'png'; break;
            case PHPExcel_Worksheet_MemoryDrawing::MIMETYPE_GIF:
                $extension = 'gif'; break;
            case PHPExcel_Worksheet_MemoryDrawing::MIMETYPE_JPEG :
                $extension = 'jpg'; break;
        }
    } else {
        $zipReader = fopen($drawing->getPath(),'r');
        $imageContents = '';
        while (!feof($zipReader)) {
            $imageContents .= fread($zipReader,1024);
        }
        fclose($zipReader);
        $extension = $drawing->getExtension();
        $chemin = "C:/wamp64/www/Extract_pictures_Excel/pictures_folders/$dirname/";
    
    }    
    
    //retrieving cell values for the images name
    $row = (int) substr($drawing->getCoordinates(), 1);  
    //Condition to read merged cell
    $stylecode = $sheet->getCell('H'.$row)->getValue();
    $colorcode = $sheet->getCell('E'.$row)->getValue();
    $finalname = $stylecode.'_'.$colorcode;
    $myFileName = $chemin.$finalname.'.'.$extension;
    file_put_contents($myFileName, $imageContents); 
}
?>

Answer

Solution:

I have changed the library to PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet because PHPExcel is outdated.

require_once './vendor/autoload.php';
use PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\IOFactory;
use PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Writer\Xlsx;

$xlsx = './test/catalogmtnwr2021202009210323241.xlsx';
$spreadsheet = IOFactory::load($xlsx);
$sheet = $spreadsheet->getActiveSheet();

Now I am testing what is merged and unmerge it

echo 'before unmerge: ', count($sheet->getMergeCells()), PHP_EOL;

foreach($sheet->getMergeCells() as $cells)
    $sheet->unmergeCells($cells);

echo 'after unmerge: ', count($sheet->getMergeCells()), PHP_EOL;

before unmerge: 678
after unmerge: 0

And at last write back into file

$writer = new Xlsx($spreadsheet);
$writer->save('./test/unmerged.xlsx');

This unmerged the cells as expected

Screenshot

Source