docs.sheetjs.com/09-dom.md at 1f87dda979d59691a4dc52aff137516c66a7f91a

Rasmus/docs.sheetjs.com

2025-05-06 20:21:41 -04:00

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title	pagination_prev
Synthetic DOM	demos/net/headless/index

import current from '/version.js'; import CodeBlock from '@theme/CodeBlock';

SheetJS is a JavaScript library for reading and writing data from spreadsheets.

SheetJS offers three methods to directly process HTML DOM TABLE elements:

table_to_sheet¹ generates a SheetJS worksheet² from a TABLE element
table_to_book³ generates a SheetJS workbook⁴ from a TABLE element
sheet_add_dom⁵ adds data from a TABLE element to an existing worksheet

These methods work in the web browser. NodeJS and other server-side platforms traditionally lack a DOM implementation, but third-party modules fill the gap.

This demo covers synthetic DOM implementations for non-browser platforms. We'll explore how to use SheetJS DOM methods in server-side environments to parse tables and export data to spreadsheets.

:::tip pass

The most robust approach for server-side processing is to automate a headless web browser. "Browser Automation" includes demos.

:::

Integration Details

Synthetic DOM implementations typically provide a function that accept an HTML string and return an object that represents document. An API method such as getElementsByTagName or querySelector can pull TABLE elements.

flowchart LR
  subgraph Synthetic DOM Operations
    html(HTML\nstring)
    doc{{`document`\nDOM Object}}
  end
  subgraph SheetJS Operations
    table{{DOM\nTable}}
    wb(((SheetJS\nWorkbook)))
    file(workbook\nfile)
  end
  html --> |Library\n\n| doc
  doc --> |DOM\nAPI| table
  table --> |`table_to_book`\n\n| wb
  wb --> |`writeFile`\n\n| file

SheetJS methods use features that may be missing from some DOM implementations.

Table rows

The rows property of TABLE elements is a list of TR row children. This list automatically updates when rows are added and deleted.

SheetJS methods do not mutate rows. Assuming there are no nested tables, the rows property can be created using getElementsByTagName:

tbl.rows = Array.from(tbl.getElementsByTagName("tr"));

Row cells

The cells property of TR elements is a list of TD cell children. This list automatically updates when cells are added and deleted.

SheetJS methods do not mutate cells. Assuming there are no nested tables, the cells property can be created using getElementsByTagName:

tbl.rows.forEach(row => row.cells = Array.from(row.getElementsByTagName("td")));

NodeJS

JSDOM

JSDOM is a DOM implementation for NodeJS. The synthetic DOM elements are compatible with SheetJS methods.

The following example scrapes the first table from the file SheetJSTable.html and generates a XLSX workbook:

const XLSX = require("xlsx");
const { readFileSync } = require("fs");
const { JSDOM } = require("jsdom");

/* obtain HTML string.  This example reads from SheetJSTable.html */
const html_str = readFileSync("SheetJSTable.html", "utf8");

// highlight-start
/* get first TABLE element */
const doc = new JSDOM(html_str).window.document.querySelector("table");

/* generate workbook */
const workbook = XLSX.utils.table_to_book(doc);
// highlight-end

XLSX.writeFile(workbook, "SheetJSDOM.xlsx");

:::note Tested Deployments

This demo was tested in the following deployments:

JSDOM	Date
`26.1.0`	2025-04-24
`25.0.1`	2025-04-24
`24.1.3`	2025-04-24
`23.2.0`	2025-04-24
`22.1.0`	2025-04-24
`21.1.2`	2025-04-24
`20.0.3`	2025-04-24
`19.0.0`	2025-04-24
`18.1.1`	2025-04-24
`17.0.0`	2025-04-24
`16.7.0`	2025-04-24
`15.2.1`	2025-04-24
`14.1.0`	2025-04-24
`13.2.0`	2025-04-24
`12.2.0`	2025-04-24
`11.12.0`	2025-04-24
`10.1.0`	2025-04-24

:::

Complete Demo (click to show)

Install SheetJS and JSDOM libraries:

{\ npm i --save https://cdn.sheetjs.com/xlsx-${current}/xlsx-${current}.tgz jsdom@24.0.0}

Save the previous codeblock to SheetJSDOM.js.
Download the sample SheetJSTable.html:

curl -LO https://docs.sheetjs.com/dom/SheetJSTable.html

Run the script:

node SheetJSDOM.js

The script will create a file SheetJSDOM.xlsx that can be opened.

HappyDOM

HappyDOM provides a DOM framework for NodeJS. Older versions required the following patches:

TABLE rows property (explained above)
TR cells property (explained above)

HappyDOM 15.7.4 did not require any workarounds.

:::note Tested Deployments

This demo was tested in the following deployments:

HappyDOM	Date
17.4.4	2025-04-24
16.8.1	2025-04-24
15.11.7	2025-04-24
14.12.3	2025-04-24
13.10.1	2025-04-24
12.10.3	2025-04-24
11.2.0	2025-04-24
10.11.2	2025-04-24
9.20.3	2025-04-24
8.9.0	2025-04-24
7.8.1	2025-04-24
6.0.4	2025-04-24
5.4.0	2025-04-24
4.1.0	2025-04-24
3.2.2	2025-04-24
2.55.0	2025-04-24

:::

Complete Demo (click to show)

Install SheetJS and HappyDOM libraries:

{\ npm i --save https://cdn.sheetjs.com/xlsx-${current}/xlsx-${current}.tgz happy-dom@13.3.1}

Download the sample script SheetJSHappyDOM.js:

curl -LO https://docs.sheetjs.com/dom/SheetJSHappyDOM.js

Download the sample SheetJSTable.html:

curl -LO https://docs.sheetjs.com/dom/SheetJSTable.html

Run the script:

node SheetJSHappyDOM.js

The script will create a file SheetJSHappyDOM.xlsx that can be opened.

XMLDOM

XMLDOM provides a DOM framework for NodeJS. For the tested version (0.8.10), the following patches were needed:

TABLE rows property (explained above)
TR cells property (explained above)
Element innerHTML property:

Object.defineProperty(tbl.__proto__, "innerHTML", { get: function() {
  var outerHTML = new XMLSerializer().serializeToString(this);
  if(outerHTML.match(/</g).length == 1) return "";
  return outerHTML.slice(0, outerHTML.lastIndexOf("</")).replace(/<[^"'>]*(("[^"]*"|'[^']*')[^"'>]*)*>/, "");
}});

:::note Tested Deployments

This demo was tested in the following deployments:

XMLDOM	Date
`0.9.8`	2025-04-24
`0.8.10`	2025-04-24

:::

Complete Demo (click to show)

Install SheetJS and XMLDOM libraries:

{\ npm i --save https://cdn.sheetjs.com/xlsx-${current}/xlsx-${current}.tgz @xmldom/xmldom@0.9.5}

Download the sample script SheetJSXMLDOM.js:

curl -LO https://docs.sheetjs.com/dom/SheetJSXMLDOM.js

Run the script:

node SheetJSXMLDOM.js

The script will create a file SheetJSXMLDOM.xlsx that can be opened.

CheerioJS

:::caution pass

Cheerio does not support a number of fundamental properties out of the box. They can be shimmed, but it is strongly recommended to use a more compliant library.

:::

CheerioJS provides a DOM-like framework for NodeJS. SheetJSCheerio.js implements the missing features to ensure that SheetJS DOM methods can process TABLE elements.

:::note Tested Deployments

This demo was tested in the following deployments:

CheerioJS	Date
`1.0.0`	2025-04-24
`1.0.0-rc.12`	2025-04-24

:::

Complete Demo (click to show)

Install SheetJS and CheerioJS libraries:

{\ npm i --save https://cdn.sheetjs.com/xlsx-${current}/xlsx-${current}.tgz cheerio@1.0.0}

Download the sample script SheetJSCheerio.js:

curl -LO https://docs.sheetjs.com/dom/SheetJSCheerio.js

Download the sample SheetJSTable.html:

curl -LO https://docs.sheetjs.com/dom/SheetJSTable.html

Run the script:

node SheetJSCheerio.js

The script will create a file SheetJSCheerio.xlsx that can be opened.

Other Platforms

DenoDOM

DenoDOM provides a DOM framework for Deno. For the tested version (0.1.48), the following patches were needed:

TABLE rows property (explained above)
TR cells property (explained above)

This example fetches a sample table:

{\ // @deno-types="https://cdn.sheetjs.com/xlsx-${current}/package/types/index.d.ts" import * as XLSX from 'https://cdn.sheetjs.com/xlsx-${current}/package/xlsx.mjs'; \n\ import { DOMParser } from 'https://deno.land/x/deno_dom@v0.1.48/deno-dom-wasm.ts'; \n\ const doc = new DOMParser().parseFromString( await (await fetch('https://docs.sheetjs.com/dom/SheetJSTable.html')).text(), "text/html", )!; // highlight-start const tbl = doc.querySelector("table"); \n\ /* patch DenoDOM element */ tbl.rows = tbl.querySelectorAll("tr"); tbl.rows.forEach(row => row.cells = row.querySelectorAll("td, th")) \n\ /* generate workbook */ const workbook = XLSX.utils.table_to_book(tbl); // highlight-end XLSX.writeFile(workbook, "SheetJSDenoDOM.xlsx");}

:::note Tested Deployments

This demo was tested in the following deployments:

Architecture	DenoDOM	Deno	Date
`darwin-x64`	0.1.48	2.2.6	2025-03-31
`darwin-arm`	0.1.48	2.2.12	2025-04-24
`win11-x64`	0.1.48	2.2.12	2025-04-28
`win11-arm`	0.1.48	2.2.1	2025-02-23
`linux-x64`	0.1.48	2.0.5	2025-01-10
`linux-arm`	0.1.48	2.1.10	2025-02-16

:::

Complete Demo (click to show)

Save the previous codeblock to SheetJSDenoDOM.ts.
Run the script with --allow-net and --allow-write entitlements:

deno run --allow-net --allow-write --allow-import SheetJSDenoDOM.ts

The script will create a file SheetJSDenoDOM.xlsx that can be opened.

:::note pass

In older versions of Deno, the --allow-import flag must be omitted:

deno run --allow-net --allow-write SheetJSDenoDOM.ts

:::

See table_to_sheet in "HTML" Utilities ↩︎
See "Worksheet Object" in "SheetJS Data Model" for more details. ↩︎
See table_to_book in "HTML" Utilities ↩︎
See "Workbook Object" in "SheetJS Data Model" for more details. ↩︎
See sheet_add_dom in "HTML" Utilities ↩︎

11 KiB Raw Blame History

Integration Details

Table rows

Row cells

NodeJS

JSDOM

HappyDOM

XMLDOM

CheerioJS

Other Platforms

DenoDOM

11 KiB

Raw Blame History