256 lines
13 KiB
Markdown
256 lines
13 KiB
Markdown
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sidebar_position: 1
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---
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# File Formats
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| Format | Read | Write |
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|:-------------------------------------------------------------|:-----:|:-----:|
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| **Excel Worksheet/Workbook Formats** |:-----:|:-----:|
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| Excel 2007+ XML Formats (XLSX/XLSM) | ✔ | ✔ |
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| Excel 2007+ Binary Format (XLSB BIFF12) | ✔ | ✔ |
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| Excel 2003-2004 XML Format (XML "SpreadsheetML") | ✔ | ✔ |
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| Excel 97-2004 (XLS BIFF8) | ✔ | ✔ |
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| Excel 5.0/95 (XLS BIFF5) | ✔ | ✔ |
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| Excel 4.0 (XLS/XLW BIFF4) | ✔ | ✔ |
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| Excel 3.0 (XLS BIFF3) | ✔ | ✔ |
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| Excel 2.0/2.1 / Multiplan 4.x DOS (XLS BIFF2) | ✔ | ✔ |
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| **Excel Supported Text Formats** |:-----:|:-----:|
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| Delimiter-Separated Values (CSV/TXT) | ✔ | ✔ |
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| Data Interchange Format (DIF) | ✔ | ✔ |
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| Symbolic Link (SYLK/SLK) | ✔ | ✔ |
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| Lotus Formatted Text (PRN) | ✔ | ✔ |
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| UTF-16 Unicode Text (TXT) | ✔ | ✔ |
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| **Other Workbook/Worksheet Formats** |:-----:|:-----:|
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| Numbers 3.0+ / iWork 2013+ Spreadsheet (NUMBERS) | ✔ | ✔ |
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| OpenDocument Spreadsheet (ODS) | ✔ | ✔ |
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| Flat XML ODF Spreadsheet (FODS) | ✔ | ✔ |
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| Uniform Office Format Spreadsheet (标文通 UOS1/UOS2) | ✔ | |
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| dBASE II/III/IV / Visual FoxPro (DBF) | ✔ | ✔ |
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| Lotus 1-2-3 (WK1/WK3) | ✔ | ✔ |
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| Lotus 1-2-3 (WKS/WK2/WK4/123) | ✔ | |
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| Quattro Pro Spreadsheet (WQ1/WQ2/WB1/WB2/WB3/QPW) | ✔ | |
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| Works 1.x-3.x DOS / 2.x-5.x Windows Spreadsheet (WKS) | ✔ | |
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| Works 6.x-9.x Spreadsheet (XLR) | ✔ | |
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| **Other Common Spreadsheet Output Formats** |:-----:|:-----:|
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| HTML Tables | ✔ | ✔ |
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| Rich Text Format tables (RTF) | | ✔ |
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| Ethercalc Record Format (ETH) | ✔ | ✔ |
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Features not supported by a given file format will not be written. Formats with
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range limits will be silently truncated:
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| Format | Last Cell | Max Cols | Max Rows |
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|:------------------------------------------|:-----------|---------:|---------:|
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| Excel 2007+ XML Formats (XLSX/XLSM) | XFD1048576 | 16384 | 1048576 |
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| Excel 2007+ Binary Format (XLSB BIFF12) | XFD1048576 | 16384 | 1048576 |
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| Numbers 12.0 (NUMBERS) | ALL1000000 | 1000 | 1000000 |
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| Quattro Pro 9+ (QPW) | IV1000000 | 256 | 1000000 |
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| Excel 97-2004 (XLS BIFF8) | IV65536 | 256 | 65536 |
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| Excel 5.0/95 (XLS BIFF5) | IV16384 | 256 | 16384 |
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| Excel 4.0 (XLS BIFF4) | IV16384 | 256 | 16384 |
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| Excel 3.0 (XLS BIFF3) | IV16384 | 256 | 16384 |
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| Excel 2.0/2.1 (XLS BIFF2) | IV16384 | 256 | 16384 |
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| Lotus 1-2-3 R2 - R5 (WK1/WK3/WK4) | IV8192 | 256 | 8192 |
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| Lotus 1-2-3 R1 (WKS) | IV2048 | 256 | 2048 |
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Excel 2003 SpreadsheetML range limits are governed by the version of Excel and
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are not enforced by the writer.
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### Excel 2007+ XML (XLSX/XLSM)
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XLSX and XLSM files are ZIP containers containing a series of XML files in
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accordance with the Open Packaging Conventions (OPC). The XLSM format, almost
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identical to XLSX, is used for files containing macros.
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The format is standardized in ECMA-376 and later in ISO/IEC 29500. Excel does
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not follow the specification, and there are additional documents discussing how
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Excel deviates from the specification.
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### Excel 2.0-95 (BIFF2/BIFF3/BIFF4/BIFF5)
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BIFF 2/3 XLS are single-sheet streams of binary records. Excel 4 introduced
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the concept of a workbook (`XLW` files) but also had single-sheet `XLS` format.
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The structure is largely similar to the Lotus 1-2-3 file formats. BIFF5/8/12
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extended the format in various ways but largely stuck to the same record format.
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Multiplan 4 "Normal" files are identical in structure to BIFF2 and use the same
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cell value records. There are some different record types for more advanced
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features like Print Settings. The BIFF2 writer generates files that can be read
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in Multiplan 4 and the parser can extract values from "Normal" files.
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There is no official specification for any of these formats. Excel 95 can write
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files in these formats, so record lengths and fields were determined by writing
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in all of the supported formats and comparing files. Excel 2016 can generate
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BIFF5 files, enabling a full suite of file tests starting from XLSX or BIFF2.
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### Excel 97-2004 Binary (BIFF8)
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BIFF8 exclusively uses the Compound File Binary container format, splitting some
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content into streams within the file. At its core, it still uses an extended
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version of the binary record format from older versions of BIFF.
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The `MS-XLS` specification covers the basics of the file format, and other
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specifications expand on serialization of features like properties.
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### Excel 2003-2004 (SpreadsheetML)
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Predating XLSX, SpreadsheetML files are simple XML files. There is no official
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and comprehensive specification, although MS has released documentation on the
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format. Since Excel 2016 can generate SpreadsheetML files, mapping features is
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pretty straightforward.
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### Excel 2007+ Binary (XLSB, BIFF12)
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Introduced in parallel with XLSX, the XLSB format combines the BIFF architecture
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with the content separation and ZIP container of XLSX. For the most part nodes
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in an XLSX sub-file can be mapped to XLSB records in a corresponding sub-file.
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The `MS-XLSB` specification covers the basics of the file format, and other
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specifications expand on serialization of features like properties.
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### Delimiter-Separated Values (CSV/TXT)
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Excel CSV deviates from RFC4180 in a number of important ways. The generated
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CSV files should generally work in Excel although they may not work in RFC4180
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compatible readers. The parser should generally understand Excel CSV. The
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writer proactively generates cells for formulae if values are unavailable.
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Excel TXT uses tab as the delimiter and code page 1200.
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Like in Excel, files starting with `0x49 0x44 ("ID")` are treated as Symbolic
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Link files. Unlike Excel, if the file does not have a valid SYLK header, it
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will be proactively reinterpreted as CSV. There are some files with semicolon
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delimiter that align with a valid SYLK file. For the broadest compatibility,
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all cells with the value of `ID` are automatically wrapped in double-quotes.
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### Miscellaneous Workbook Formats
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Support for other formats is generally far behind XLS/XLSB/XLSX support, due in
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part to a lack of publicly available documentation. Test files were produced in
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the respective apps and compared to their XLS exports to determine structure.
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The main focus is data extraction.
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#### Lotus 1-2-3 (WKS/WK1/WK2/WK3/WK4/123)
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The Lotus formats consist of binary records similar to the BIFF structure. Lotus
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did release a specification decades ago covering the original WK1 format. Other
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features were deduced by producing files and comparing to Excel support.
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Generated WK1 worksheets are compatible with Lotus 1-2-3 R2 and Excel 5.0.
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Generated WK3 workbooks are compatible with Lotus 1-2-3 R9 and Excel 5.0.
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#### Quattro Pro (WQ1/WQ2/WB1/WB2/WB3/QPW)
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The Quattro Pro formats use binary records in the same way as BIFF and Lotus.
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Some of the newer formats (namely WB3 and QPW) use a CFB enclosure just like
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BIFF8 XLS.
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#### Works for DOS / Windows Spreadsheet (WKS/XLR)
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All versions of Works were limited to a single worksheet.
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Works for DOS 1.x - 3.x and Works for Windows 2.x extends the Lotus WKS format
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with additional record types.
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Works for Windows 3.x - 5.x uses the same format and WKS extension. The BOF
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record has type `FF`
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Works for Windows 6.x - 9.x use the XLR format. XLR is nearly identical to
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BIFF8 XLS: it uses the CFB container with a Workbook stream. Works 9 saves the
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exact Workbook stream for the XLR and the 97-2003 XLS export. Works 6 XLS
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includes two empty worksheets but the main worksheet has an identical encoding.
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XLR also includes a `WksSSWorkBook` stream similar to Lotus FM3/FMT files.
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#### Numbers 3.0+ / iWork 2013+ Spreadsheet (NUMBERS)
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iWork 2013 (Numbers 3.0 / Pages 5.0 / Keynote 6.0) switched from a proprietary
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XML-based format to the current file format based on the iWork Archive (IWA).
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This format has been used up through the current release (Numbers 11.2).
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The parser focuses on extracting raw data from tables. Numbers technically
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supports multiple tables in a logical worksheet, including custom titles. This
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parser will generate one worksheet per Numbers table.
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The writer currently exports a small range from the first worksheet.
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#### OpenDocument Spreadsheet (ODS/FODS)
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ODS is an XML-in-ZIP format akin to XLSX while FODS is an XML format akin to
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SpreadsheetML. Both are detailed in the OASIS standard, but tools like LO/OO
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add undocumented extensions. The parsers and writers do not implement the full
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standard, instead focusing on parts necessary to extract and store raw data.
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#### Uniform Office Spreadsheet (UOS1/2)
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UOS is a very similar format, and it comes in 2 varieties corresponding to ODS
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and FODS respectively. For the most part, the difference between the formats
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is in the names of tags and attributes.
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### Miscellaneous Worksheet Formats
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Many older formats supported only one worksheet:
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#### dBASE and Visual FoxPro (DBF)
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DBF is really a typed table format: each column can only hold one data type and
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each record omits type information. The parser generates a header row and
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inserts records starting at the second row of the worksheet. The writer makes
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files compatible with Visual FoxPro extensions.
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Multi-file extensions like external memos and tables are currently unsupported,
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limited by the general ability to read arbitrary files in the web browser. The
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reader understands DBF Level 7 extensions like DATETIME.
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#### Symbolic Link (SYLK)
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<https://oss.sheetjs.com/notes/sylk/> is an informal specification based on our
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experimentation and previous documentation efforts.
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#### Lotus Formatted Text (PRN)
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There is no real documentation, and in fact Excel treats PRN as an output-only
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file format. Nevertheless we can guess the column widths and reverse-engineer
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the original layout. Excel's 240 character width limitation is not enforced.
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#### Data Interchange Format (DIF)
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There is no unified definition. Visicalc DIF differs from Lotus DIF, and both
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differ from Excel DIF. Where ambiguous, the parser/writer follows the expected
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behavior from Excel. In particular, Excel extends DIF in incompatible ways:
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- Since Excel automatically converts numbers-as-strings to numbers, numeric
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string constants are converted to formulae: `"0.3" -> "=""0.3""`
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- DIF technically expects numeric cells to hold the raw numeric data, but Excel
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permits formatted numbers (including dates)
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- DIF technically has no support for formulae, but Excel will automatically
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convert plain formulae. Array formulae are not preserved.
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#### HTML
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Excel HTML worksheets include special metadata encoded in styles. For example,
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`mso-number-format` is a localized string containing the number format. Despite
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the metadata the output is valid HTML, although it does accept bare `&` symbols.
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The writer adds type metadata to the TD elements via the `t` tag. The parser
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looks for those tags and overrides the default interpretation. For example, text
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like `<td>12345</td>` will be parsed as numbers but `<td t="s">12345</td>` will
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be parsed as text.
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#### Rich Text Format (RTF)
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Excel RTF worksheets are stored in clipboard when copying cells or ranges from a
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worksheet. The supported codes are a subset of the Word RTF support.
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#### Ethercalc Record Format (ETH)
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[Ethercalc](https://ethercalc.net/) is an open source web spreadsheet powered by
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a record format reminiscent of SYLK wrapped in a MIME multi-part message.
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