shared_strings.md

SharedStrings.xml

Excel appears to store all strings that appear as cell values in a spreadsheet in a 'shared strings' document.

The exact filename is referenced in _rels/workbook.xml.rels, but always appears to be SharedStrings.xml in the top of the excel file.

Format

Each string is wrapped in an <si></si> tag. The string may contain formatting.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<sst xmlns="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/spreadsheetml/2006/main" count="2" uniqueCount="2">
	<si>
		<t>This a second shared string</t>
		<phoneticPr fontId="3" type="noConversion"/>
	</si>
	<si>
		<r>
			<t>This is, h</t>
		</r>
		<r>
			<rPr>
				<b/>
				<sz val="10"/>
				<rFont val="Verdana"/>
			</rPr>
			<t>opefully, the first</t>
		</r>
		<r>
			<rPr>
				<sz val="10"/>
				<rFont val="Verdana"/>
			</rPr>
			<t xml:space="preserve"> shared string</t>
		</r>
		<phoneticPr fontId="3" type="noConversion"/>
	</si>
</sst>

Notes on shared string referencing

When the type of a cell is 's' then the value of a cell will be an integer. That integer is the index of the shared string in this file, starting at zero.

Output

The extract_shared_strings.rb script converts the shared strings xml into a text file. Each string appears on a separate line. Formatting tags and newlines are removed.

Questions

Should we be preserving newlines in these strings?