Xlsx

Variant Guidance

• For financial models or other heavily formatted analytical workbooks, read references/financial-modeling.md before applying conventions.

Useful Commands

node skills/xlsx/scripts/create_xlsx.cjs output.xlsx --headers "Name,Age,City" --rows "Alice,30,NYC;Bob,25,LA" --json
node skills/xlsx/scripts/recalc.cjs workbook.xlsx --json
node skills/xlsx/scripts/import_delimited.cjs raw.csv cleaned.xlsx --json

Starter Pattern

const XlsxPopulate = require("xlsx-populate");

async function main() {
  const workbook = await XlsxPopulate.fromBlankAsync();
  const sheet = workbook.sheet(0).name("Summary");

  sheet.cell("A1").value("Revenue");
  sheet.cell("B1").value("Cost");
  sheet.cell("C1").value("Profit");
  sheet.cell("A2").value(120000);
  sheet.cell("B2").value(45000);
  sheet.cell("C2").formula("A2-B2");

  sheet.range("A1:C1").style({
    bold: true,
    horizontalAlignment: "center",
    fill: "D9EAF7"
  });

  sheet.freezePanes("A2");
  sheet.column("A").width(16);
  sheet.column("B").width(16);
  sheet.column("C").width(16);

  await workbook.toFileAsync("profit-summary.xlsx");
}

main();

Create a New Workbook

Use skills/xlsx/scripts/create_xlsx.cjs to create a professionally styled .xlsx from scratch. This is the preferred method for creation tasks.

With headers and rows

node skills/xlsx/scripts/create_xlsx.cjs output.xlsx --headers "Name,Age,City" --rows "Alice,30,NYC;Bob,25,LA" --json

With JSON data

node skills/xlsx/scripts/create_xlsx.cjs output.xlsx --json-data '[{"Name":"Alice","Age":30},{"Name":"Bob","Age":25}]' --json

With formulas

node skills/xlsx/scripts/create_xlsx.cjs output.xlsx --headers "Revenue,Cost,Profit" --rows "120000,45000,=A2-B2" --sheet-name "Summary" --json

The script applies professional styling automatically: bold headers with fill color, freeze panes at row 2, auto-filter, and auto-sized column widths. Numbers are auto-detected and written as numbers, not strings. Values starting with = are written as formulas.

CSV / TSV Import

• Use skills/xlsx/scripts/import_delimited.cjs for messy CSV or TSV inputs.
• It auto-detects encoding and delimiter, infers whether the first row is a header, writes a styled workbook, and gives you a clean .xlsx starting point.

Recalculation And Templates

• Use skills/xlsx/scripts/recalc.cjs after significant formula edits when soffice is available to refresh calculated values through LibreOffice.
• Prefer user-provided templates from the current workspace when the user needs a financial model or branded workbook preserved.
• If recalc.cjs cannot run because soffice is unavailable, keep formulas intact, do not guess cached values, and state the verification limitation plainly.
• For finance-specific presentation rules, source notes, and number formats, load references/financial-modeling.md.