docs.sheetjs.com/docz/docs/03-demos/20-content.md

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20	Content and Site Generation

With the advent of server-side frameworks and content management systems, it is possible to build sites whose source of truth is a spreadsheet! This demo explores a number of approaches.

GatsbyJS

gatsby-transformer-excel generates nodes for each data row of each worksheet. The official documentation includes examples and more detailed usage instructions.

:::note

gatsby-transformer-excel is maintained by the Gatsby core team and all bugs should be directed to the main Gatsby project. If it is determined to be a bug in the parsing logic, issues should then be raised with the SheetJS project.

:::

NuxtJS

@nuxt/content is a file-based CMS for Nuxt, enabling static-site generation and on-demand server rendering powered by spreadsheets.

nuxt.config.js configuration

Through an override in nuxt.config.js, Nuxt Content will use custom parsers. Differences from a stock create-nuxt-app config are shown below:

// highlight-start
import { readFile, utils } from 'xlsx';

// This will be called when the files change
const parseSheet = (file, { path }) => {
  // `path` is a path that can be read with `XLSX.readFile`
  const wb = readFile(path);
  const o = wb.SheetNames.map(name => ({ name, data: utils.sheet_to_json(wb.Sheets[name])}));
  return { data: o };
}
// highlight-end

export default {
// ...

// highlight-start
  // content.extendParser allows us to hook into the parsing step
  content: {
    extendParser: {
      // the keys are the extensions that will be matched.  The "." is required
      ".numbers": parseSheet,
      ".xlsx": parseSheet,
      ".xls": parseSheet,
      // can add other extensions like ".fods" as desired
    }
  },
// highlight-end

// ...
}

Template Use

When a spreadsheet is placed in the content folder, Nuxt will find it. The data can be referenced in a view with asyncData. The name should not include the extension, so "sheetjs.numbers" would be referenced as "sheetjs":

  async asyncData ({$content}) {
    return {
      // $content('sheetjs') will match files with extensions in nuxt.config.js
      data: await $content('sheetjs').fetch()
    };
  }

In the template, data.data is an array of objects. Each object has a name property for the worksheet name and a data array of row objects. This maps neatly with nested v-for:

  <!-- loop over the worksheets -->
  <div v-for="item in data.data" v-bind:key="item.name">
    <table>
      <!-- loop over the rows of each worksheet -->
      <tr v-for="row in item.data" v-bind:key="row.Index">
        <!-- here `row` is a row object generated from sheet_to_json -->
        <td>{{ row.Name }}</td>
        <td>{{ row.Index }}</td>
      </tr>
    </table>
  </div>

Nuxt Content Demo

Complete Example (click to show)

:::note

This was tested against create-nuxt-app v4.0.0 on 2022 August 13.

:::

1. Create a stock app:

npx create-nuxt-app SheetJSNuxt

When prompted, enter the following options:

• Project name: press Enter (use default SheetJSNuxt)
• Programming language: press Down Arrow (TypeScript selected) then Enter
• Package manager: select Npm and press Enter
• UI framework: select None and press Enter
• Nuxt.js modules: scroll to Content, select with Space, then press Enter
• Linting tools: press Enter (do not select any Linting tools)
• Testing framework: select None and press Enter
• Rendering mode: select Universal (SSR / SSG) and press Enter
• Deployment target: select Static (Static/Jamstack hosting) and press Enter
• Development tools: press Enter (do not select any Development tools)
• What is your GitHub username?: press Enter
• Version control system: select None

The project will be configured and modules will be installed.

2. Install the SheetJS library and start the dev server:

cd SheetJSNuxt
npm i --save https://cdn.sheetjs.com/xlsx-latest/xlsx-latest.tgz
npm run dev

When the build finishes, the terminal will display a URL like:

ℹ Listening on: http://localhost:64688/                                                            05:41:11
No issues found.                                                                                   05:41:11

The dev server is listening on that URL. Open the link in a web browser.

3. Download https://sheetjs.com/pres.xlsx and move to the content folder.

4. Modify nuxt.config.js as described earlier

5. Replace pages/index.vue with the following:

<!-- sheetjs (C) 2013-present  SheetJS -- http://sheetjs.com -->
<template><div>
  <div v-for="item in data.data" v-bind:key="item.name">
    <h2>{{ item.name }}</h2>
    <table><thead><tr><th>Name</th><th>Index</th></tr></thead><tbody>
      <tr v-for="row in item.data" v-bind:key="row.Index">
        <td>{{ row.Name }}</td>
        <td>{{ row.Index }}</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody></table>
  </div>
</div></template>

<script>
export default {
  async asyncData ({$content}) {
    return {
      data: await $content('pres').fetch()
    };
  }
}
</script>

The browser should refresh to show the contents of the spreadsheet. If it does not, click Refresh manually or open a new browser window.

6. To verify that hot loading works, open pres.xlsx from the content folder in Excel. Add a new row to the bottom and save the file:

The dev server terminal should show a line like:

ℹ Updated ./content/pres.xlsx                                       @nuxt/content 05:43:37

The page should automatically refresh with the new content:

7. Stop the dev server (press CTRL+C in the terminal window) and run

npm run generate

This will create a static site in the dist folder, which can be served with:

npx http-server dist

Accessing the page http://localhost:8080 will show the page contents. Verifying the static nature is trivial: make another change in Excel and save. The page will not change.