poka.sh

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XLSX

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Xlsx Preview.

At a glance
Original creator Microsoft
First published 2006
Purpose The Excel workbook format: worksheets, values, formulas and formatting as XML inside a ZIP package.
Extensions .xlsx
Poka parser poka-xlsx
Viewer poka-workbook-viewer
Depth tier Parser with a shared viewer (see Depth tiers)
Breadth tier B3 Core (see Breadth tiers)

Preview a sample

These are sample files, not yours. Poka opens a sample in your browser: the file is read and parsed on your device and nothing is uploaded.

How much Poka reads

B3 Core. Only the main content type or types are decoded (for example geometry but not materials, layers or annotations, or only one version family). The list of gaps is substantial.

Confidence: high (the reviewer read the code and a test that proves the claim). Basis: Reviewed 2026-10-16: poka-xlsx over the shared poka-sheet-common (lib.rs 740 lines and comments.rs 336 lines, calamine 0.36.1) and poka-workbook-viewer; the unit tests and tests/samples.rs were run (2026-10-20: all pass, including a corpus test asserting a note exactly where a package holds a comments part) and a native probe mapped all 19 .xlsx, 13 .xlsm and 10 .xltx samples without error. Covers Transitional and Strict (testEXCEL.strict.xlsx) workbooks; .xlsm has its own crate on the same code plus a VBA tab. Only comments, formulas, dates, sheets, VBA and merged ranges are asserted in tests; the other features only open.

What Poka does not read

  • Number formats: values are raw, so percentages, currency and decimals are not applied (dates and durations are the exception)
  • Cell and column styling (fonts, fills, borders, alignment), column widths, row heights, hidden rows and columns, freeze panes and print setup
  • Merged ranges are drawn but cut to the cells shown and only the top-left cell's text is kept; hyperlink targets, tables, conditional formatting, data validation and rich-text runs
  • Embedded charts, pictures, shapes and text boxes on a worksheet are silently absent with no note in the header (chart sheets are counted and named)
  • Pivot definitions, slicers and external links (a pivot's cached result shows as ordinary cells)
  • Defined names are counted, not listed; document properties are not read
  • At most 500 rows and 100 columns per sheet and 60,000 cells across the workbook; later sheets are not parsed once the cells are spent, and the tab says so
  • .xltx and .xltm have no manifest or route of their own

Background

The Library of Congress says it was first standardised as ECMA-376 in 2006, that ISO/IEC 29500 editions followed in 2008, 2011, 2012 and 2016, and that Excel has saved it by default since Excel 2007. It replaced the binary .xls format. Poka turns each worksheet into a tab with its formulas and cell comments; chart sheets are counted, not drawn, and a chart embedded on a worksheet is neither drawn nor mentioned. Number formats are not applied (dates and durations are the exception); merged ranges are passed to the viewer, which draws them as one cell, but only the top-left cell's text is kept.

  • Excel binary workbook (older) (.xls): Named by the Library of Congress as the format XLSX replaced; Poka has its own parser (poka-xls).

Libraries

Libraries Poka uses or has assessed for this format, with the status, licence and language the registry records.

Software that uses it

  • COBie

Sources