How to Get the Columns from an Excel XLSX Spreadsheet using Node.js

Retrieving objects from within an Excel file is easier than we might think — especially with the help of a free API.

Using the below code, we can take advantage of a free API to easily extract the columns from an XLSX file and return those columns as separate objects. Our response will look like the following JSON example:

  "Successful": true,
  "Columns": [
    {
      "Path": "string",
      "HeadingCell": {
        "Path": "string",
        "TextValue": "string",
        "CellIdentifier": "string",
        "StyleIndex": 0,
        "Formula": "string"
      }
    }
  ]
}

We can authorize our API call with a free-tier API key, and we can get one of those by registering a free account on the Cloudmersive website (these allow a limit of 800 API calls per month with no additional commitment).

To begin structuring our request, let’s first install the SDK. We can either run this command:

npm install cloudmersive-convert-api-client --save

Or we can add the following snippet to our package.json:

  "dependencies": {
    "cloudmersive-convert-api-client": "^2.6.3"
  }

Following that, we can call the function:

var CloudmersiveConvertApiClient = require('cloudmersive-convert-api-client');
var defaultClient = CloudmersiveConvertApiClient.ApiClient.instance;

// Configure API key authorization: Apikey
var Apikey = defaultClient.authentications['Apikey'];
Apikey.apiKey = 'YOUR API KEY';



var apiInstance = new CloudmersiveConvertApiClient.EditDocumentApi();

var input = new CloudmersiveConvertApiClient.GetXlsxColumnsRequest(); // GetXlsxColumnsRequest | Document input request


var callback = function(error, data, response) {
  if (error) {
    console.error(error);
  } else {
    console.log('API called successfully. Returned data: ' + data);
  }
};
apiInstance.editDocumentXlsxGetColumns(input, callback);

We can structure our request object like the following JSON example:

{
  "InputFileBytes": "string",
  "InputFileUrl": "string",
  "WorksheetToQuery": {
    "Path": "string",
    "WorksheetName": "string"
  }
}

That’s all there is to it — now we can easily retrieve column objects directly from our XLSX spreadsheets with minimal code!