Tips

A grab-bag of short examples that go beyond the quickstart: load workbooks in the browser, start from a blank model, read and write cells, export .xlsx files, and address cells in a specific sheet.

Loading a workbook in the browser

You can use Model.fromXLSXFile in Node, but in the browser you should fetch the .xlsx as an ArrayBuffer and pass it to Model.fromXLSX along with a filename:

const res = await fetch("/budget.xlsx");
const model = await Model.fromXLSX(await res.arrayBuffer(), "budget.xlsx");

Starting with a blank workbook

If you don’t have an existing file, Model.empty creates a model containing a single empty workbook:

const model = Model.empty("workbook.xlsx");

Reading and writing cells

As well as evaluating ad-hoc formulas with runFormula, a Model lets you read and write individual cells. Reading comes in three shapes: a bare value, a full cell object, or a 2D array for a range:

// Get the value in a cell (string, number, boolean, null, or error)
const revenue = model.readValue("=B2");
// Get the full cell object
const revenueCell = model.readCell("=B2");
// Get a 2D array of cell objects
const table = model.readCells("=A1:C10");

Writing values to one or more cells:

// Write a value to a single cell
model.write("B2", 42);
// Write multiple cells in one recalculation pass
model.writeMultiple([
  ["B2", 42],
  ["B3", "Total"],
  ["B4", true],
]);

Writing a formula goes through the workbook rather than the model, because changing a formula rebuilds that workbook’s dependency graph:

const wb = model.getWorkbook("budget.xlsx");
wb.editCell("B5", { f: "=SUM(E4:E17)" });

Saving as .xlsx

In Node, write the workbook straight to disk with toXLSXFile:

await model.getWorkbook("budget.xlsx").toXLSXFile("budget-final-draft-v2-FINAL.xlsx");

In the browser, toXLSX returns a buffer you can wrap in a Blob and offer as a download:

const buffer = await model.getWorkbook("budget.xlsx").toXLSX("arraybuffer");
const blob = new Blob([buffer], {
  type: "application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet",
});
const url = URL.createObjectURL(blob);
const a = Object.assign(document.createElement("a"), {
  href: url,
  download: "budget.xlsx",
});
a.click();
URL.revokeObjectURL(url);

Referencing specific sheets

By default, when you refer to cells without a sheet name (e.g. A1, A1:B4, D:F), the engine looks at the first sheet in the workbook. To reference a cell in a specific sheet, prefix it with the sheet name and an exclamation mark (e.g. Sheet2!A1, Sheet2!A1:B4, Sheet2!D:F). If a sheet name contains a space you must wrap the name in single quotes (e.g. 'My Sheet'!A1, 'My Sheet'!A1:B4, 'My Sheet'!D:F).