Getting Started

tablsx is an ESM-first Node.js package for reading and writing Excel .xlsx files.

Requirements

• Node.js 18 or newer
• An ESM project, or a build step that supports ESM imports

Install

npm install tablsx

First round trip

import {
  createCell,
  createWorkbook,
  createWorksheet,
  readXlsx,
  writeXlsx,
} from "tablsx";

const workbook = createWorkbook([
  createWorksheet("People", [
    [createCell("name"), createCell("age"), createCell("active")],
    [createCell("Ada"), createCell(36), createCell(true)],
    [createCell("Linus"), createCell(54), createCell(false)],
  ]),
]);

const bytes = writeXlsx(workbook);
const parsed = readXlsx(bytes);

console.log(parsed.sheets[0].rows[1][0].value);
// "Ada"

Choose the right API

• Use readXlsx and writeXlsx when you want direct control over the workbook model.
• Use sheetFromRows and rowsFromSheet when your data is already shaped like JavaScript objects.
• Use WorkbookBuilder and SheetBuilder when you want a fluent API for construction.
• Use WorkbookReader and SheetReader when you want ergonomic read-only accessors over parsed workbooks.

What the normalized model looks like

The public model is plain JavaScript objects:

{
  sheets: [
    {
      name: "People",
      rows: [
        [
          { value: "name", formula: null, type: "string" },
          { value: "age", formula: null, type: "string" },
        ],
      ],
    },
  ],
}

That model is the shared contract across the reader, writer, builders, and tabular helpers.