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Open Source C++ Library for Excel Spreadsheet 

Read, Write, Edit, Manipulate and Convert Microsoft® Excel XLSX Spreadsheet files, Copy cells/rows and protect workbook via Open Source C++ API.

What is OpenXLSX?

OpenXLSX is an open-source C++ library that gives computer programmers the power to read, write, create and modify Excel files as well as data formatting with lesser dependencies. It is a work in progress and aims to provide all the important features for spreadsheet creation and manipulation. The library has provided complete support for basic Excel tasks management as well advanced features from simple data manipulation to complex operations such as styling, formatting, and cell merging. This versatility empowers software developers to create Excel files that meet their specific requirements with limited time and resources.

OpenXLSX provides support for several important features, such as creating, opening, and saving spreadsheet files, reading or writing & modify cell contents, Copying cells and cell ranges, Copying worksheets & many more. OpenXLSX can be built and run on several platforms such as Windows, Linux & Linux. At the heart of OpenXLSX lies a simple but very powerful API that opens the doors for Excel generation and manipulation. Whether you're a seasoned software developer or just beginning your journey, the OpenXLSX API provides a reliable toolkit for Excel generation, modification and manipulation.

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Getting Started with OpenXLSX

The current stable version is available on CRAN. Please use the following command to install it.

Install OpenXLSX via CRAN

 install.packages("openxlsx", dependencies = TRUE)

Development version

install.packages("openxlsx", dependencies = TRUE) 
  require(devtools)
  install_github("ycphs/openxlsx")

C++ API to Create & Modify Spreadsheet Files

The open-source API OpenXLSX enables programmers to generate an excel spreadsheet from scratch. It also provides support for modifying the existing spreadsheet with ease. To modify an existing file you need to open it and insert the data you want to include in the files. You can create a new worksheet and add it to the empty workbook, add data to it, and much more. You can also assign a name to the sheet and can also add content to it. By using the following steps, you can create a Microsoft Excel document in C++ apps.

Create Excel Document in C++

  1. Initialize XLDocument object
  2. Create document
  3. Add worksheet in document
  4. Add text in cell
  5. Save document

Create Excel Easily - C++

// initialize XLDocument
XLDocument doc;
// create document
doc.create("./Demo01.xlsx");
// add worksheet
auto wks = doc.workbook().worksheet("Sheet1");
// add text
wks.cell(XLCellReference("A1")).value() = " Hello OpenXLSX! ";
// save document
doc.save();

Protect Workbook or Worksheet

Evert organizations work hard to collect their required data and don’t want anyone to play with their data. OpenXLSX provides developers with the functionality to prevent people from editing various parts of a workbook. You can protect it by providing a password to limit who can even open it. It is always useful to protect a certain part of a workbook and let the users make changes to other parts when required.

Protect Excel Workbook from Modifications via C++

wb <- createWorkbook()
addWorksheet(wb, "S1")
writeDataTable(wb, 1, x = iris[1:30, ])
# Formatting cells / columns is allowed , but inserting / deleting columns is protected:
protectWorksheet(wb, "S1",
protect = TRUE,
lockFormattingCells = FALSE, lockFormattingColumns = FALSE,
lockInsertingColumns = TRUE, lockDeletingColumns = TRUE
)
# Remove the protection
protectWorksheet(wb, "S1", protect = FALSE)
## Not run:
saveWorkbook(wb, "pageSetupExample.xlsx", overwrite = TRUE)

Manage Worksheet Column Widths

The Open-source API OpenXLSX enables software programmers to set worksheet column widths to a specific width or "auto" for automatic width sizing. We can use widths = "auto" in the setColWidths function to auto-widen the column based on the data. You can also use merge cells to create a header for the data frame’s column headers. It also provides features for hiding the columns.

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