Reading Files

The main SheetJS method for reading files is read. It expects developers to supply the actual data in a supported representation.

The readFile helper method accepts a filename and tries to read the specified file using standard APIs. It does not work in web browsers!

Parse file data and generate a SheetJS workbook object

var wb = XLSX.read(data, opts);

read attempts to parse data and return a workbook object

The type property of the opts object controls how data is interpreted. For string data, the default interpretation is Base64.

Read a specified file and generate a SheetJS workbook object

var wb = XLSX.readFile(filename, opts);

readFile attempts to read a local file with specified filename.

readFile works in specific platforms. It does not support web browsers!

The NodeJS installation note includes additional instructions for non-standard use cases.

Parsing Options

The read functions accept an options argument:

Option Name	Default	Description
`type`		Input data representation
`raw`	`false`	If true, plain text parsing will not parse values **
`dense`	`false`	If true, use a dense sheet representation
`codepage`		If specified, use code page when appropriate **
`cellFormula`	`true`	Save formulae to the `.f` field
`cellHTML`	`true`	Parse rich text and save HTML to the `.h` field
`cellNF`	`false`	Save number format string to the `.z` field
`cellStyles`	`false`	Save style/theme info to the `.s` field
`cellText`	`true`	Generated formatted text to the `.w` field
`cellDates`	`false`	Store dates as type `d` (default is `n`)
`dateNF`		If specified, use the string for date code 14 **
`sheetStubs`	`false`	Create cell objects of type `z` for stub cells
`sheetRows`	`0`	If >0, read the specified number of rows
`bookDeps`	`false`	If true, parse calculation chains
`bookFiles`	`false`	If true, add raw files to book object **
`bookProps`	`false`	If true, only parse enough to get book metadata **
`bookSheets`	`false`	If true, only parse enough to get the sheet names
`bookVBA`	`false`	If true, generate VBA blob
`password`	`""`	If defined and file is encrypted, use password **
`WTF`	`false`	If true, throw errors on unexpected file features **
`sheets`		If specified, only parse specified sheets **
`nodim`	`false`	If true, calculate worksheet ranges
`PRN`	`false`	If true, allow parsing of PRN files **
`xlfn`	`false`	If true, preserve prefixes in formulae
`FS`		DSV Field Separator override
`UTC`	`true`	If explicitly false, parse text dates in local time

Even if cellNF is false, formatted text will be generated and saved to .w
In some cases, sheets may be parsed even if bookSheets is false.
Excel aggressively tries to interpret values from CSV and other plain text. This leads to surprising behavior! The raw option suppresses value parsing.
bookSheets and bookProps combine to give both sets of information
Deps will be an empty object if bookDeps is false
bookFiles behavior depends on file type:
- keys array (paths in the ZIP) for ZIP-based formats
- files hash (mapping paths to objects representing the files) for ZIP
- cfb object for formats using CFB containers
By default all worksheets are parsed. sheets restricts based on input type:
- number: zero-based index of worksheet to parse (0 is first worksheet)
- string: name of worksheet to parse (case insensitive)
- array of numbers and strings to select multiple worksheets.
codepage is applied to BIFF2 - BIFF5 files without CodePage records and to CSV files without BOM in type:"binary". BIFF8 XLS always defaults to 1200.
PRN affects parsing of text files without a common delimiter character.
Currently only XOR encryption is supported. Unsupported error will be thrown for files employing other encryption methods.
WTF is mainly for development. By default, the parser will suppress read errors on single worksheets, allowing you to read from the worksheets that do parse properly. Setting WTF:true forces those errors to be thrown.
UTC applies to CSV, Text and HTML formats. When explicitly set to false, the parsers will assume the files are specified in local time. By default, as is the case for other file formats, dates and times are interpreted in UTC.

Dense

The "Cell Storage" section of the SheetJS Data Model documentation explains the worksheet representation in more detail.

Utility functions that process SheetJS workbook objects typically process both sparse and dense worksheets.

Range

Some file formats, including XLSX and XLS, can self-report worksheet ranges. The self-reported ranges are used by default.

If the sheetRows option is set, up to sheetRows rows will be parsed from the worksheets. sheetRows-1 rows will be generated when looking at the JSON object output (since the header row is counted as a row when parsing the data). The !ref property of the worksheet will hold the adjusted range. For formats that self-report sheet ranges, the !fullref property will hold the original range.

The nodim option instructs the parser to ignore self-reported ranges and use the actual cells in the worksheet to determine the range. This addresses known issues with non-compliant third-party exporters.

Formulae

For some file formats, the cellFormula option must be explicitly enabled to ensure that formulae are extracted.

Newer Excel functions are serialized with the _xlfn. prefix, hidden from the user. SheetJS will strip _xlfn. normally. The xlfn option preserves them. The "Formulae" docs covers this in more detail.

"Formulae" covers the features in more detail.

VBA

When a macro-enabled file is parsed, if the bookVBA option is true, the raw VBA blob will be stored in the vbaraw property of the workbook.

"VBA and Macros" covers the features in more detail.

Implementation Details (click to show)

The bookVBA merely exposes the raw VBA CFB object. It does not parse the data.

XLSM and XLSB store the VBA CFB object in xl/vbaProject.bin. BIFF8 XLS mixes the VBA entries alongside the core Workbook entry, so the library generates a new blob from the XLS CFB container that works in XLSM and XLSB files.

Input Type

The type parameter for read controls how data is interpreted:

`type`	expected input
`"base64"`	string: Base64 encoding of the file
`"binary"`	string: binary string (byte `n` is `data.charCodeAt(n)`)
`"string"`	string: JS string (only appropriate for UTF-8 text formats)
`"buffer"`	nodejs Buffer
`"array"`	array: array of 8-bit unsigned integers (byte `n` is `data[n]`)
`"file"`	string: path of file that will be read (nodejs only)

Some common types are automatically deduced from the data input type, including NodeJS Buffer objects, Uint8Array and ArrayBuffer objects, and arrays of numbers.

When a JS string is passed with no type, the library assumes the data is a Base64 string. FileReader#readAsBinaryString or ASCII data requires "binary" type. DOM strings including FileReader#readAsText should use type "string".

Guessing File Type

Implementation Details (click to show)

Excel and other spreadsheet tools read the first few bytes and apply other heuristics to determine a file type. This enables file type punning: renaming files with the .xls extension will tell your computer to use Excel to open the file but Excel will know how to handle it. This library applies similar logic:

Byte 0	Raw File Type	Spreadsheet Types
`0xD0`	CFB Container	BIFF 5/8 or protected XLSX/XLSB or WQ3/QPW or XLR
`0x09`	BIFF Stream	BIFF 2/3/4/5
`0x3C`	XML/HTML	SpreadsheetML / Flat ODS / UOS1 / HTML / plain text
`0x50`	ZIP Archive	XLSB or XLSX/M or ODS or UOS2 or NUMBERS or text
`0x49`	Plain Text	SYLK or plain text
`0x54`	Plain Text	DIF or plain text
`0xEF`	UTF-8 Text	SpreadsheetML / Flat ODS / UOS1 / HTML / plain text
`0xFF`	UTF-16 Text	SpreadsheetML / Flat ODS / UOS1 / HTML / plain text
`0x00`	Record Stream	Lotus WK* or Quattro Pro or plain text
`0x7B`	Plain text	RTF or plain text
`0x0A`	Plain text	SpreadsheetML / Flat ODS / UOS1 / HTML / plain text
`0x0D`	Plain text	SpreadsheetML / Flat ODS / UOS1 / HTML / plain text
`0x20`	Plain text	SpreadsheetML / Flat ODS / UOS1 / HTML / plain text

DBF files are detected based on the first byte as well as the third and fourth bytes (corresponding to month and day of the file date)

Works for Windows files are detected based on the BOF record with type 0xFF

Plain text format guessing follows the priority order:

Format	Test
XML	`<?xml` appears in the first 1024 characters
HTML	starts with `<` and HTML tags appear in the first 1024 characters
XML	starts with `<` and the first tag is valid
RTF	starts with `{\rt`
DSV	starts with `sep=` followed by field delimiter and line separator
DSV	more unquoted `\|` chars than `;` `\t` or `,` in the first 1024
DSV	more unquoted `;` chars than `\t` or `,` in the first 1024
TSV	more unquoted `\t` chars than `,` chars in the first 1024
CSV	one of the first 1024 characters is a comma `","`
ETH	starts with `socialcalc:version:`
PRN	`PRN` option is set to true
CSV	(fallback)

HTML tags include html, table, head, meta, script, style, div

Why are random files valid? (click to hide)

Excel is extremely aggressive in reading files. Adding the XLS extension to any file tricks Excel into processing the file.

If the file matches certain heuristics, Excel will use a format-specific parser.

If it cannot deduce the file type, Excel will parse the unknown file as if it were CSV or TSV. SheetJS attempts to replicate that behavior.

Parsing Options​

Dense​

Range​

Formulae​

VBA​

Input Type​

Guessing File Type​