Common Spreadsheet Format

The "Common Spreadsheet Format" is the object model used by SheetJS. The library includes a number of API functions for common operations, but some features are only accessible by inspecting and modifying the objects directly.

This section covers the JS representation of workbooks, worksheets, cells, ranges, addresses and other features.

Historical Context

Web Workers, a popular API for parallelism in the web browser, uses message passing. The "structured clone algorithm"¹ is used to pass data between the main renderer thread and Worker instances.

The structured clone algorithm does not preserve functions or prototypes.

In the SheetJS data model, each structure is a simple object. There are no classes or prototype methods.

Contents

• Addresses and Ranges
• Cell Objects
• Sheet Objects
• Workbook Object
• Spreadsheet Features
  • Dates and Times
  • Formulae
  • Hyperlinks
  • Cell Comments
  • Defined Names
  • Number Formats
  • VBA and Macros
  • Row Properties
  • Column Properties
  • Sheet Visibility
  • Merged Cells

Footnotes

1. See the HTML Living Standard for more details on the "structured clone algorithm". ↩