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Spreadsheet Features

Even for basic features like date storage, the official Excel formats store the same content in different ways. The parsers are expected to convert from the underlying file format representation to the Common Spreadsheet Format. Writers are expected to convert from CSF back to the underlying file format.

Formulae

The A1-style formula string is stored in the f field. Even though different file formats store the formulae in different ways, the formats are translated. Even though some formats store formulae with a leading equal sign, CSF formulae do not start with =.

Formulae File Format Support (click to show)
Storage Representation Formats Read Write
A1-style strings XLSX ✔ ✔
RC-style strings XLML and plain text ✔ ✔
BIFF Parsed formulae XLSB and all XLS formats ✔
OpenFormula formulae ODS/FODS/UOS ✔ ✔
Lotus Parsed formulae All Lotus WK_ formats ✔

Since Excel prohibits named cells from colliding with names of A1 or RC style cell references, a (not-so-simple) regex conversion is possible. BIFF Parsed formulae and Lotus Parsed formulae have to be explicitly unwound. OpenFormula formulae can be converted with regular expressions.

Shared formulae are decompressed and each cell has the formula corresponding to its cell. Writers generally do not attempt to generate shared formulae.

Single-Cell Formulae

For simple formulae, the f key of the desired cell can be set to the actual formula text. This worksheet represents A1=1, A2=2, and A3=A1+A2:

var worksheet = {
  "!ref": "A1:A3",
  A1: { t:'n', v:1 },
  A2: { t:'n', v:2 },
  A3: { t:'n', v:3, f:'A1+A2' }
};

Utilities like aoa_to_sheet will accept cell objects in lieu of values:

var worksheet = XLSX.utils.aoa_to_sheet([
  [ 1 ], // A1
  [ 2 ], // A2
  [ {t: "n", v: 3, f: "A1+A2"} ] // A3
]);

Cells with formula entries but no value will be serialized in a way that Excel and other spreadsheet tools will recognize. This library will not automatically compute formula results! For example, the following worksheet will include the BESSELJ function but the result will not be available in JavaScript:

var worksheet = XLSX.utils.aoa_to_sheet([
  [ 3.14159, 2 ], // Row "1"
  [ { t:'n', f:'BESSELJ(A1,B1)' } ] // Row "2" will be calculated on file open
}

If the actual results are needed in JS, SheetJS Pro offers a formula calculator component for evaluating expressions, updating values and dependent cells, and refreshing entire workbooks.

Array Formulae

Assign an array formula

XLSX.utils.sheet_set_array_formula(worksheet, range, formula);

Array formulae are stored in the top-left cell of the array block. All cells of an array formula have a F field corresponding to the range. A single-cell formula can be distinguished from a plain formula by the presence of F field.

For example, setting the cell C1 to the array formula {=SUM(A1:A3*B1:B3)}:

// API function
XLSX.utils.sheet_set_array_formula(worksheet, "C1", "SUM(A1:A3*B1:B3)");

// ... OR raw operations
worksheet['C1'] = { t:'n', f: "SUM(A1:A3*B1:B3)", F:"C1:C1" };

For a multi-cell array formula, every cell has the same array range but only the first cell specifies the formula. Consider D1:D3=A1:A3*B1:B3:

// API function
XLSX.utils.sheet_set_array_formula(worksheet, "D1:D3", "A1:A3*B1:B3");

// ... OR raw operations
worksheet['D1'] = { t:'n', F:"D1:D3", f:"A1:A3*B1:B3" };
worksheet['D2'] = { t:'n', F:"D1:D3" };
worksheet['D3'] = { t:'n', F:"D1:D3" };

Utilities and writers are expected to check for the presence of a F field and ignore any possible formula element f in cells other than the starting cell. They are not expected to perform validation of the formulae!

Dynamic Arrays

Assign a dynamic array formula

XLSX.utils.sheet_set_array_formula(worksheet, range, formula, true);

Released in 2020, Dynamic Array Formulae are supported in the XLSX/XLSM and XLSB file formats. They are represented like normal array formulae but have special cell metadata indicating that the formula should be allowed to adjust the range.

An array formula can be marked as dynamic by setting the cell's D property to true. The F range is expected but can be the set to the current cell:

// API function
XLSX.utils.sheet_set_array_formula(worksheet, "C1", "_xlfn.UNIQUE(A1:A3)", 1);

// ... OR raw operations
worksheet['C1'] = { t: "s", f: "_xlfn.UNIQUE(A1:A3)", F:"C1", D: 1 }; // dynamic

Localization

SheetJS operates at the file level. Excel stores formula expressions using the English (United States) function names. For non-English users, Excel uses a localized set of function names.

For example, when the computer language and region is set to French (France), Excel interprets =SOMME(A1:C3) as if SOMME is the SUM function. However, in the actual file, Excel stores SUM(A1:C3).

Prefixed "Future Functions"

Functions introduced in newer versions of Excel are prefixed with _xlfn. when stored in files. When writing formula expressions using these functions, the prefix is required for maximal compatibility:

// Broadest compatibility
XLSX.utils.sheet_set_array_formula(worksheet, "C1", "_xlfn.UNIQUE(A1:A3)", 1);

// Can cause errors in spreadsheet software
XLSX.utils.sheet_set_array_formula(worksheet, "C1", "UNIQUE(A1:A3)", 1);

When reading a file, the xlfn option preserves the prefixes.

Functions requiring `_xlfn.` prefix (click to show)

This list is growing with each Excel release.

ACOT
ACOTH
AGGREGATE
ARABIC
BASE
BETA.DIST
BETA.INV
BINOM.DIST
BINOM.DIST.RANGE
BINOM.INV
BITAND
BITLSHIFT
BITOR
BITRSHIFT
BITXOR
BYCOL
BYROW
CEILING.MATH
CEILING.PRECISE
CHISQ.DIST
CHISQ.DIST.RT
CHISQ.INV
CHISQ.INV.RT
CHISQ.TEST
COMBINA
CONFIDENCE.NORM
CONFIDENCE.T
COT
COTH
COVARIANCE.P
COVARIANCE.S
CSC
CSCH
DAYS
DECIMAL
ERF.PRECISE
ERFC.PRECISE
EXPON.DIST
F.DIST
F.DIST.RT
F.INV
F.INV.RT
F.TEST
FIELDVALUE
FILTERXML
FLOOR.MATH
FLOOR.PRECISE
FORMULATEXT
GAMMA
GAMMA.DIST
GAMMA.INV
GAMMALN.PRECISE
GAUSS
HYPGEOM.DIST
IFNA
IMCOSH
IMCOT
IMCSC
IMCSCH
IMSEC
IMSECH
IMSINH
IMTAN
ISFORMULA
ISOMITTED
ISOWEEKNUM
LAMBDA
LET
LOGNORM.DIST
LOGNORM.INV
MAKEARRAY
MAP
MODE.MULT
MODE.SNGL
MUNIT
NEGBINOM.DIST
NORM.DIST
NORM.INV
NORM.S.DIST
NORM.S.INV
NUMBERVALUE
PDURATION
PERCENTILE.EXC
PERCENTILE.INC
PERCENTRANK.EXC
PERCENTRANK.INC
PERMUTATIONA
PHI
POISSON.DIST
QUARTILE.EXC
QUARTILE.INC
QUERYSTRING
RANDARRAY
RANK.AVG
RANK.EQ
REDUCE
RRI
SCAN
SEC
SECH
SEQUENCE
SHEET
SHEETS
SKEW.P
SORTBY
STDEV.P
STDEV.S
T.DIST
T.DIST.2T
T.DIST.RT
T.INV
T.INV.2T
T.TEST
UNICHAR
UNICODE
UNIQUE
VAR.P
VAR.S
WEBSERVICE
WEIBULL.DIST
XLOOKUP
XOR
Z.TEST

Row and Column Properties

Format Support (click to show)

Row Properties: XLSX/M, XLSB, BIFF8 XLS, XLML, SYLK, DOM, ODS

Column Properties: XLSX/M, XLSB, BIFF8 XLS, XLML, SYLK, DOM

Row and Column properties are not extracted by default when reading from a file and are not persisted by default when writing to a file. The option cellStyles: true must be passed to the relevant read or write function.

Column Properties

The !cols array in each worksheet, if present, is a collection of ColInfo objects which have the following properties:

type ColInfo = {
  /* visibility */
  hidden?: boolean; // if true, the column is hidden

  /* column width is specified in one of the following ways: */
  wpx?:    number;  // width in screen pixels
  width?:  number;  // width in Excel's "Max Digit Width", width*256 is integral
  wch?:    number;  // width in characters

  /* other fields for preserving features from files */
  level?:  number;  // 0-indexed outline / group level
  MDW?:    number;  // Excel's "Max Digit Width" unit, always integral
};

Row Properties

The !rows array in each worksheet, if present, is a collection of RowInfo objects which have the following properties:

type RowInfo = {
  /* visibility */
  hidden?: boolean; // if true, the row is hidden

  /* row height is specified in one of the following ways: */
  hpx?:    number;  // height in screen pixels
  hpt?:    number;  // height in points

  level?:  number;  // 0-indexed outline / group level
};

Outline / Group Levels Convention

The Excel UI displays the base outline level as 1 and the max level as 8. Following JS conventions, SheetJS uses 0-indexed outline levels wherein the base outline level is 0 and the max level is 7.

Why are there three width types? (click to show)

There are three different width types corresponding to the three different ways spreadsheets store column widths:

SYLK and other plain text formats use raw character count. Contemporaneous tools like Visicalc and Multiplan were character based. Since the characters had the same width, it sufficed to store a count. This tradition was continued into the BIFF formats.

SpreadsheetML (2003) tried to align with HTML by standardizing on screen pixel count throughout the file. Column widths, row heights, and other measures use pixels. When the pixel and character counts do not align, Excel rounds values.

XLSX internally stores column widths in a nebulous "Max Digit Width" form. The Max Digit Width is the width of the largest digit when rendered (generally the "0" character is the widest). The internal width must be an integer multiple of the the width divided by 256. ECMA-376 describes a formula for converting between pixels and the internal width. This represents a hybrid approach.

Read functions attempt to populate all three properties. Write functions will try to cycle specified values to the desired type. In order to avoid potential conflicts, manipulation should delete the other properties first. For example, when changing the pixel width, delete the wch and width properties.

Implementation details (click to show)

Row Heights

Excel internally stores row heights in points. The default resolution is 72 DPI or 96 PPI, so the pixel and point size should agree. For different resolutions they may not agree, so the library separates the concepts.

Even though all of the information is made available, writers are expected to follow the priority order:

  1. use hpx pixel height if available
  2. use hpt point height if available

Column Widths

Given the constraints, it is possible to determine the MDW without actually inspecting the font! The parsers guess the pixel width by converting from width to pixels and back, repeating for all possible MDW and selecting the MDW that minimizes the error. XLML actually stores the pixel width, so the guess works in the opposite direction.

Even though all of the information is made available, writers are expected to follow the priority order:

  1. use width field if available
  2. use wpx pixel width if available
  3. use wch character count if available

Number Formats

The cell.w formatted text for each cell is produced from cell.v and cell.z format. If the format is not specified, the Excel General format is used. The format can either be specified as a string or as an index into the format table. Parsers are expected to populate workbook.SSF with the number format table. Writers are expected to serialize the table.

Custom tools should ensure that the local table has each used format string somewhere in the table. Excel convention mandates that the custom formats start at index 164. The following example creates a custom format from scratch:

New worksheet with custom format (click to show) 
var wb = {
  SheetNames: ["Sheet1"],
  Sheets: {
    Sheet1: {
      "!ref":"A1:C1",
      A1: { t:"n", v:10000 },                    // <-- General format
      B1: { t:"n", v:10000, z: "0%" },           // <-- Builtin format
      C1: { t:"n", v:10000, z: "\"T\"\ #0.00" }  // <-- Custom format
    }
  }
}

The rules are slightly different from how Excel displays custom number formats. In particular, literal characters must be wrapped in double quotes or preceded by a backslash. For more info, see the Excel documentation article Create or delete a custom number format or ECMA-376 18.8.31 (Number Formats)

Default Number Formats (click to show)

The default formats are listed in ECMA-376 18.8.30:

ID Format
0 General
1 0
2 0.00
3 #,##0
4 #,##0.00
9 0%
10 0.00%
11 0.00E+00
12 # ?/?
13 # ??/??
14 m/d/yy (see below)
15 d-mmm-yy
16 d-mmm
17 mmm-yy
18 h:mm AM/PM
19 h:mm:ss AM/PM
20 h:mm
21 h:mm:ss
22 m/d/yy h:mm
37 #,##0 ;(#,##0)
38 #,##0 ;[Red](#,##0)
39 #,##0.00;(#,##0.00)
40 #,##0.00;[Red](#,##0.00)
45 mm:ss
46 [h]:mm:ss
47 mmss.0
48 ##0.0E+0
49 @

Format 14 (m/d/yy) is localized by Excel: even though the file specifies that number format, it will be drawn differently based on system settings. It makes sense when the producer and consumer of files are in the same locale, but that is not always the case over the Internet. To get around this ambiguity, parse functions accept the dateNF option to override the interpretation of that specific format string.

Hyperlinks

Format Support (click to show)

Cell Hyperlinks: XLSX/M, XLSB, BIFF8 XLS, XLML, ODS

Tooltips: XLSX/M, XLSB, BIFF8 XLS, XLML

Hyperlinks are stored in the l key of cell objects. The Target field of the hyperlink object is the target of the link, including the URI fragment. Tooltips are stored in the Tooltip field and are displayed when you move your mouse over the text.

For example, the following snippet creates a link from cell A3 to https://sheetjs.com with the tip "Find us @ SheetJS.com!":

ws['A1'].l = { Target:"https://sheetjs.com", Tooltip:"Find us @ SheetJS.com!" };

Note that Excel does not automatically style hyperlinks -- they will generally be displayed as normal text.

Remote Links

HTTP / HTTPS links can be used directly:

ws['A2'].l = { Target:"https://docs.sheetjs.com/#hyperlinks" };
ws['A3'].l = { Target:"http://localhost:7262/yes_localhost_works" };

Excel also supports mailto email links with subject line:

ws['A4'].l = { Target:"mailto:ignored@dev.null" };
ws['A5'].l = { Target:"mailto:ignored@dev.null?subject=Test Subject" };

Local Links

Links to absolute paths should use the file:// URI scheme:

ws['B1'].l = { Target:"file:///SheetJS/t.xlsx" }; /* Link to /SheetJS/t.xlsx */
ws['B2'].l = { Target:"file:///c:/SheetJS.xlsx" }; /* Link to c:\SheetJS.xlsx */

Links to relative paths can be specified without a scheme:

ws['B3'].l = { Target:"SheetJS.xlsb" }; /* Link to SheetJS.xlsb */
ws['B4'].l = { Target:"../SheetJS.xlsm" }; /* Link to ../SheetJS.xlsm */

Relative Paths have undefined behavior in the SpreadsheetML 2003 format. Excel 2019 will treat a ..\ parent mark as two levels up.

Internal Links

Links where the target is a cell or range or defined name in the same workbook ("Internal Links") are marked with a leading hash character:

ws['C1'].l = { Target:"#E2" }; /* Link to cell E2 */
ws['C2'].l = { Target:"#Sheet2!E2" }; /* Link to cell E2 in sheet Sheet2 */
ws['C3'].l = { Target:"#SomeDefinedName" }; /* Link to Defined Name */

Cell Comments

Cell comments are objects stored in the c array of cell objects. The actual contents of the comment are split into blocks based on the comment author. The a field of each comment object is the author of the comment and the t field is the plain text representation.

For example, the following snippet appends a cell comment into cell A1:

if(!ws.A1.c) ws.A1.c = [];
ws.A1.c.push({a:"SheetJS", t:"I'm a little comment, short and stout!"});

Note: XLSB enforces a 54 character limit on the Author name. Names longer than 54 characters may cause issues with other formats.

To mark a comment as normally hidden, set the hidden property:

if(!ws.A1.c) ws.A1.c = [];
ws.A1.c.push({a:"SheetJS", t:"This comment is visible"});

if(!ws.A2.c) ws.A2.c = [];
ws.A2.c.hidden = true;
ws.A2.c.push({a:"SheetJS", t:"This comment will be hidden"});

Threaded Comments

Introduced in Excel 365, threaded comments are plain text comment snippets with author metadata and parent references. They are supported in XLSX and XLSB.

To mark a comment as threaded, each comment part must have a true T property:

if(!ws.A1.c) ws.A1.c = [];
ws.A1.c.push({a:"SheetJS", t:"This is not threaded"});

if(!ws.A2.c) ws.A2.c = [];
ws.A2.c.hidden = true;
ws.A2.c.push({a:"SheetJS", t:"This is threaded", T: true});
ws.A2.c.push({a:"JSSheet", t:"This is also threaded", T: true});

There is no Active Directory or Office 365 metadata associated with authors in a thread.

Sheet Visibility

Excel enables hiding sheets in the lower tab bar. The sheet data is stored in the file but the UI does not readily make it available. Standard hidden sheets are revealed in the "Unhide" menu. Excel also has "very hidden" sheets which cannot be revealed in the menu. It is only accessible in the VB Editor!

The visibility setting is stored in the Hidden property of sheet props array.

More details (click to show)
Value Definition
0 Visible
1 Hidden
2 Very Hidden

With https://rawgit.com/SheetJS/test_files/HEAD/sheet_visibility.xlsx:

> wb.Workbook.Sheets.map(function(x) { return [x.name, x.Hidden] })
[ [ 'Visible', 0 ], [ 'Hidden', 1 ], [ 'VeryHidden', 2 ] ]

Non-Excel formats do not support the Very Hidden state. The best way to test if a sheet is visible is to check if the Hidden property is logical truth:

> wb.Workbook.Sheets.map(function(x) { return [x.name, !x.Hidden] })
[ [ 'Visible', true ], [ 'Hidden', false ], [ 'VeryHidden', false ] ]

VBA and Macros

VBA Macros are stored in a special data blob that is exposed in the vbaraw property of the workbook object when the bookVBA option is true. They are supported in XLSM, XLSB, and BIFF8 XLS formats. The supported format writers automatically insert the data blobs if it is present in the workbook and associate with the worksheet names.

Custom Code Names (click to show)

The workbook code name is stored in wb.Workbook.WBProps.CodeName. By default, Excel will write ThisWorkbook or a translated phrase like DieseArbeitsmappe. Worksheet and Chartsheet code names are in the worksheet properties object at wb.Workbook.Sheets[i].CodeName. Macrosheets and Dialogsheets are ignored.

The readers and writers preserve the code names, but they have to be manually set when adding a VBA blob to a different workbook.

Macrosheets (click to show)

Older versions of Excel also supported a non-VBA "macrosheet" sheet type that stored automation commands. These are exposed in objects with the !type property set to "macro".

Detecting macros in workbooks (click to show)

The vbaraw field will only be set if macros are present, so testing is simple:

function wb_has_macro(wb/*:workbook*/)/*:boolean*/ {
	if(!!wb.vbaraw) return true;
	const sheets = wb.SheetNames.map((n) => wb.Sheets[n]);
	return sheets.some((ws) => !!ws && ws['!type']=='macro');
}