NEWS.md
In JanMarvin/openxlsx2: Read, Write and Edit 'xlsx' Files

openxlsx2 (development version)

A normalization function was added for separators in formulas. In English locales, formulas require a comma as argument separator, locales that use the comma a decimal separator, a semicolon is used as argument separator. We added a check to replace semicolons added in formulas, because these were hard to spot and if overlooked could brick the XML worksheet.

Grouping of rows does no longer require the groups to be initialized in the worksheet. 1303
Fix another case where cc was unintentionally shorten when applying a cm formula. Not sure if the cause for this is in the cm formula or in some other place.
write_xlsx() now handles table_name as documented. 1314
Writing the character strings "Inf", "-Inf", and "NaN" is now possible. 1317

Previously, when loading a workbook, the included styles were broken down, with XML styles converted into data frame objects. However, these results were only used to generate a sequence.
Similarly, if available, the entire shared strings table was converted to text upon loading. Now, this conversion is postponed until explicitly requested. Both approaches have their advantages: reading shared strings on load is useful when they are extensively shared across worksheets and multiple worksheets are retrieved via wb_to_df(), while delaying conversion saves memory and computation time when not required. However, in the latter case, shared strings across multiple worksheets will need to be converted each time they are accessed. The impact of this change should be monitored.
dims_to_dataframe() was improved to better handle many combined dims like "A1:B1,A3:D4"

openxlsx2 1.14

A new experimental flush argument has been introduced to wb_save(), allowing a custom XML streaming function for worksheets to help prevent memory spikes. This feature has only been tested within openxlsx2 and not extensively with spreadsheet software. Since it bypasses certain fail-safe mechanisms, including XML validity checks, it should only be used as a last-resort solution. 1255 This expects all inputs to be UTF-8, therefore it might not work with R running in different locale sessions, if non ASCII characters are used.

Input validation has been added to fmt_txt(), similar to how it has been added to the create_*() family a while ago. 1280
Aligned with the standard, openxlsx2 now uses a baseColWith of 8 (previously 8.43). The standard requires an integer and we provided a float. This fixes an issue with third party software. 1284 Files with the previously incorrect baseColWidth can be loaded and saved and the fix will be applied.
Fixed a bug, where it was impossible to add data to a worksheet with a cm formula. This is a regression that was introduced with the internal changes in the previous release. The fix also restores writing cm formulas. 1287
Some changes were implemented to ease interaction with the python library openpyxl used by pandas. 1289, 1291
Corrected the documentation for wb_add_font(). 1293

Single vector character classes will be treated as vector input. This extends the handling of glue, added in the previous release, and covers now all character classes, including fmt_txt().

openxlsx2 1.13

It is now possible to create shapes using create_shape(). 1231
Various input checks were added to the style helpers
write_xlsx() now accepts wb_set_base_font() arguments to set the base font (size, color, name) for the entire workbook. (1262, @uhkeller)

The first formula in a workbook can now be a shared formula. 1223
Avoid passing ASCII strings through Rcpp::String(). Previously all cc columns were passed through Rcpp::String() to avoid encoding issues on non unicode systems. 1224
fmt_txt() is now indifferent about color and colour. 1229
Improve set_col_widths(widths = "auto"). This should avoid very wide columns for numeric columns. 1239

Update of internal pugixml library
Switch to f_attr to handle more formula attributes
Remove the use of cc_out when writing output files
Refactoring of wb_add_border() (@pteridin)
Trim internal cc data frame to only a selected set of columns

Style helpers will accept colors only if provided via wb_color(). This broke a single example case that was still using c(rgb = "FF808080") this can be converted to wb_color(hex = "FF808080").

openxlsx2 1.12

wb_set_properties() now has a datetime_modify option. 1176
Make non consecutive equal sized dims behave similar to non equal sized non consecutive dims. This makes dims = "A1:A5,C1:D5" behave similar to dims = "A1,C1:D1,A2:A5,C2:D5". 1183
Improvements to the internal C++ code in wb_add_data() to avoid string copies. 1184 This is a continuation of work started in 1177 to speedup wb_add_data()/wb_add_data_table().
Extend the bookview handling. It is now possible to add more than one bookview using wb_set_bookview(view = 2L) and to remove additional bookviews with wb_remove_bookview(). Available bookviews can be inspected with wb_get_bookview(). 1193
Actually implement sep functionality in wb_add_data() and wb_add_data_table() for list columns in x. 1200
create_sparklines now allows to add multiple sparklines as a group. (1205, @trekonom)

Create date is not reset to the present time in each call to wb_set_properties(). 1176
Improve handling of file headers and footers for a case where wb_load() would previously fail. 1186
Partial labels were written only over the first element and only if assigned in an ordered fashion. 1189
Enable use of current_sheet() in create_sparklines(). This is the default for the function, but was not supported.
When setting headers and footers, elements can now be skipped with NA as documented. 1211

wb_workbook() and the underlying wbWorkbook object gained a new argument datetime_modified. This argument was added after datetime_created and changes the number and ordering of arguments. 1176

openxlsx2 1.11

Add hide_no_data_items option in wb_add_slicer(). 1169

Previously rows that trigger scientific notation (e.g. 1e+05) would cause issues, when matched against a non scientific version. 1170
When using wb_add_data_table(..., total_row = TRUE) the last row of the data table in the workbook was mistakenly overwritten with the total row formula, which should have been placed below the last row of the table. This caused loss of data. 1179

openxlsx2 1.10

When writing a file with na.strings = NULL, the file will not contain any reference to the blank cell. Depending on the number of missings in a data set, this can reduce the file size significantly. 1111
wb_to_df() gained a new argument show_hyperlinks which returns the target or location of a hyperlink, instead of the links description. 1136
A new wrapper function wb_add_hyperlink() extends the capabilities of writing hyperlinks to shared hyperlinks. Shared hyperlinks bring along internal changes that are noted below. 1137
Add address field to wb_add_image(). This can be used to add a url or mailto address to an image (1138, conversion from a PR by @jistria for openxlsx)
It is now possible to remove hyperlinks with either wb_remove_hyperlinks() or wb_clean_sheet(). 1139
wb_add_data_table() will throw a warning if non distinct column names are found and will fix this for the user. Non distinct can be duplicated or even upper and lower case x and X. 1150

The integration of the shared formula feature in the previous release broke the silent extension of dims, if a single cell dims was provided for an x that was larger than a single cell in wb_add_formula(). 1131
Fixed a regression in the previous release, where wb_dims() would pass column names passed via cols to col2int() which could cause overflow errors resulting in a failing check. 1133
Fix cloning from worksheets with multiple images.
Improved wb_to_df(types = ...). Previously if used on unordered data this could cause unintended class order. types no longer requires knowledge of the order of the variables. Not all variables must be specified and it accepts character classes as well. 1147
Improve creation of table ids. Previously, on a dirty workbook, unique table ids were not enforced. This caused duplicated table ids, which lead to errors in spreadsheet software. 1152

The handling of shared hyperlinks has been updated. Previously, when loading a file with shared hyperlinks, they were converted into wbHyperlink objects (a legacy from openxlsx). With recent internal changes, hyperlinks are no longer automatically transformed into wbHyperlink objects. If you still require these objects, you can use the internal function wb_to_hyperlink(wb, sheet = 1). However, please note that this class is not essential for openxlsx2 and may be further simplified or removed in the future without notice. 1137

openxlsx2 1.9

Experimental support for shared formulas. Similar to spreadsheet software, when a cell is dragged to horizontally or vertically. This requires the formula to be written only for a single cell and it is filled by spreadsheet software for the remaining dimensions. wb_add_formula() gained a new argument shared. 1074
Experimental support for reading shared formulas. If show_formula is used with wb_to_df(), we try to show the value that is shown in spreadsheet software. 1091
It is possible to read cells containing formulas as formula. 1103

If a font unknown to openxlsx2 is used wb_set_col_widths() defaults to using the workbooks default font. 1080
Previously, if only cols and rows were passed to wb_dims() and row 1 was selected, incorrect results were returned. This has been fixed. 1094
wb_dims() no longer ignores above, below, left, right if from_dims is not supplied. 1104
wb_to_df() with skip_hidden_rows = TRUE works now if a file path is passed. 1122

openxlsx2 1.8

Legacy write_data(), write_datatable(), write_formula(), write_comment() are now deprecated in favor of wb_add_data(), wb_add_data_table(), wb_add_formula(), and wb_add_comment(). (1064, @olivroy).
convertToExcelDate() is defunct and will be removed in a future version of the package. Use convert_to_excel_date(). (1064, @olivroy).

wb_dims() is now able to handle various columns. 1019
wb_to_df() now has a check_names argument. 1050
The set of conditional formatting icon sets now includes x14 icons. This commit also fixed adding conditional formatting to worksheets with pivot tables. 1053

Many improvements in the xlsb parser. This includes changes to the logic of the formula parser, rich text strings are now handled, data validation, table formulas and various corrections all over the place. It is still lacking various features and this wont change in the foreseeable future, but the parser is now in better shape than ever. 1037, 1040, 1042, 1044, 1049, 1054
write_xlsx() now uses sheet. Previously it required the undocumented sheet_name. 1057
Fixed a bug were we obfuscated valid html in worksheets with vml buttons. These files previously did not load. 1062
Fixed slow writing of non consecutive number formats introduced in the previous release. 1067, 1068

openxlsx2 1.7

Add function to remove conditional formatting from worksheet wb_remove_conditional_formatting() 1011
Silence a warning triggered by a folder called "[trash]". 1012
Initial support for pivot table timelines. 1016
Add wb_add_timeline() and extend wb_add_slicer(). 1017

Fixed an issue with non consecutive dims, where columns or rows were silently dropped. 1015
Fixes to wb_clone_worksheet() cloning drawings and images should be restored. 1016
Fixed an issue where non consecutive columns with special types would overlap. If columns A and C were dates, column B would be formatted as date too. 1026

openxlsx2 1.6

Helper to read sensitivity labels from files and apply them to workbooks. 983
It is now possible to pass non consecutive dims like "A1:B1,C2:D2" to various style helpers like wb_add_fill(). In addition it is now possible to write a data set into a predefined dims region using enforce = TRUE. This handles either "," or ";" as cell separator. 993

# force a dataset into a specific cell dimension
wb <- wb_workbook()$add_worksheet()
wb$add_data(dims = "I2:J2;A1:B2;G5:H6", x = matrix(1:8, 4, 2), enforce = TRUE)

Allow writing data frames with zero rows. 987
wb_dims() has been improved and is safer on 0-length inputs. In particular, it will error for a case where a cols doesn't exist in x (990, @olivroy).

# Previously created a wrong dims
wb_dims(x = mtcars, cols = "non-existent-col")
# Now errors

wb_set_col_widths() is more strict about its arguments. If you provide cols, widths, or hidden don't have appropriate length, it will throw a warning. This may change to an error in the future, so it is recommended to use appropriate values. (991, @olivroy).

openxlsx2 1.5

(This was updated post release.)

It's now possible to pass array formula vectors to wb_add_formula(). 958
wb_add_data_table() gained a new total_row argument. This allows to add a total row to spreadsheets including text and spreadsheet formulas. 959
wb_dims() now accepts from_dims to specify a starting cell 960.
You can now set options(openxlsx2.na.strings) to a value to have a default value for na.strings in wb_add_data(), wb_add_data_table(), and write_xlsx() 968.
The direction vectors are written is now controlled via dims. Previously it was required to transpose a vector to write it horizontally: wb_add_data(x = t(letters), col_names = FALSE). Now the direction is defined by dims. The default is still to write vectors vertically, but for a horizontal vector it is possible to write wb_add_data(x = letters, dims = "A1:Z1"). This change impacts vectors, hyperlinks and formulas and basically everything that is not a two dimensional x object.

# before (workaround needed)
wb$add_data(dims = wb_dims(rows = 1, cols = 1:3), x = t(c(4, 5, 8)), col_names = FALSE)
# now (listens to dims)
wb$add_data(dims = wb_dims(rows = 1, cols = 1:3), x = c(4, 5, 8))

Export wb_add_ignore_error(). 955

openxlsx2 1.4

Experimental support for calculation of pivot table fields. 892
Improve sparkline creation with new options and support snake case arguments. 920
Experimental support to get and set base colors. 938

Character strings with XML content were not written correctly: a <br/> b was converted to something neither we nor spreadsheet software was able to decipher. 895
Restore first_active_row/first_active_col and first_col/first_row functionality in write_xlsx(). 903
Further attempts to fix pivot table sorting. 912 In addition improve handling of non distinct names in wb_data() and add create_pivottablestyle(). 914
Document adding background color and images to comments and fix adding more than two images as background. 919
Improvements to wb_set_base_font(). This modifies the workbook theme now, including panose values. 935
Hyperlinks now use the color of the theme and the base size. 937
wb_add_data() and wb_add_data_table() yield better error messages if attempting to add data to an empty workbook (942, @olivroy).

Updating to themes. This includes updates to the default style 'Office Theme' 899
This includes switching to the new default font 'Aptos Narrow'
A new style 'Office 2013 - 2022 Theme' was added

Users that want to remain on the old style should use wb_workbook(theme = 'Office 2013 - 2022 Theme') or wb_set_base_font(font_name = "Calibri").

Code simplifications (924, @olivroy), partial matching (923, @olivroy)
Updates to test files and findings by various linters (922, @olivroy)
Improve wbWorkbook documentation to help disambiguate the chaining and piping methods (936, @olivroy and 928).

openxlsx2 1.3

Further tweaks to documentation and vignettes to make them more consistent.
wb_add_pivot_table() / wb_add_slicer()
wb_load(): calc_chain is no longer visible and the previous text that might have been misleading in regards of its use, has been replaced by a more detailed description of what are the consequences of keeping the calculation chain

Allow further modifications of comments. The background can now be filled with a color or an image. 870
Added wb_set_cell_style_across() to apply a cell style to selected columns and rows. This allows unlocking cells to make use column and row properties of wb_protect_worksheet() which require additional cell styles (see issue 871 for a more detailed explanation). wb_set_cell_style() now accepts a cell dimension in the style argument. 873

wb_add_ignore_error() now returns a wbWorkbook. 865
Deactivate the is_hyperlink check for non-dataframe objects in wb_add_data(). Internally, vapply() is applied to the input object, which is applied column-wise for a data frame and cell-wise for a matrix. This speeds up the writing of larger matrices considerably. 876
Column style currency is now correctly applied to numeric vectors. Previously it was not handled. This applies the built in spreadsheet style for currency presumably linked to the spreadsheet software locale. 879
wb_to_df(col_names = FALSE) no longer drops column names from logical vectors. Previously, column names were replaced by NA. Now the column name is returned as a cell value in a character column. 884

openxlsx2 1.2

Add new params to wb_add_pivot_table(). It is now possible to set the show_data_as value and set a tabular table design. 833

Previously formulas written as data frames were not xml escaped. 834
Improve drawing relationship id selection that could cause issues with unordered relationship ids in loaded workbooks. 838
Improve copying cells in transpose mode and with hyperlinks. 850
Options openxlsx2.maxWidth and openxlsx2.minWidth are now respected as documented when setting column widths with wb_set_col_widths(). 847

openxlsx2 1.1

Basic support for cloning worksheets across workbooks was added in wb_clone_worksheet(). This should work with tabular and formula data, images and charts. Support for more complex worksheets is known pending. 622
Enable loading workbooks without sheets with wb_load(sheet = NULL). This is helpful if the sheets contain a lot of data and only some general workbook data is of interest. 810
It is no longer needed to manually create columns for wb_group_cols(). 781
It is now possible to sort pivot tables created by wb_add_pivot_table(). 795
Basic support for the xlsb file format. We parse the binary file format into pseudo-openxml files that we can import. Therefore, after importing, it is possible to interact with the file as if it had been provided as xlsx in the first place. This is of course slower than reading directly from the binary file. Our implementation is also still missing some features: some array formulas are still broken, conditional formatting and data validation are not implemented, nor are pivot tables and slicers. 688
Please note that openxlsx2 is not a security tool and the xlsb parser was written with the intention of reading valid xlsb files on little endian systems.
Please do not raise issues about xlsb in terms of speed or completeness of features of the openxml standard. If you have access to other file conversion tools, such as spreadsheet software, they may provide a better solution for your needs.
Writing xlsb files is outside the scope of this project.
New set of function wb_get_properties()/wb_set_properties() to view and modify workbook properties. 782 This was subsequently improved to handle more workbook properties like company and manager. (799, @olivroy)
Basic (experimental) support to add slicers to pivot tables created by openxlsx2. 822

Removing the worksheet that is the active tab does no longer result in warnings in spreadsheet software. 792
update_table() works now without if the table has no autofilter. 802

openxlsx2 1.0

wb_get_worksheet(), wb_ws(), wb_get_sheet_name() are no longer exported. 735 They never worked as expected.
Use wb_get_sheet_names(), wb_get_active_sheet(), wb_get_selected() instead.
wbChartSheet is now internal (760, @olivroy)

These functions are no longer recommended. A guide was created to help users They will continue to work for some time, but changing to newer functions is recommended.

delete_data() is deprecated in favor of wb_remove_tables() or wb_clean_sheet()
create_comment() is deprecated in favor of wb_comment(). Note that while wb_comment() has some new defaults, the behavior of create_comment() has not changed. (758, @olivroy)

wb_comment() is a new helper function to help create wbComment objects It is very similar to create_comment(), with the following differences:
author looks at options("openxlsx2.creator"); (create_comment() only used sys.getenv("USERNAME") / Sys.getenv("USER"))
visible defaults to FALSE to account for modern spreadsheet software behavior. (create_comment(), it is TRUE).
width and height must now be of length 1. (In create_comment(), the first element is taken, other are ignored.)
wb_get_sheet_names() gains a escape argument to allow special XML characters to be escaped. 252
wb_color() now accepts hex colors with leading sharp (e.g. "#FFFFF") 728.
wb_merge_cells() gains a solve argument. This allows to solve cell intersecting regions. 733
wb_add_comment(comment = "x") no longer errors when a comment as a character vector no longer fails (758, @olivroy)

Tweaks to documentation and vignettes to make them more consistent.

wb_to_df() now handles date1904 detection. Previous results from this somewhat rare file type were using the default timezone origin of 1900-01-01. 737
wb_load() handles more cases.
With workbooks with threaded comments 731
With workbooks with embeddings other than docx 732
with workbooks with long hyperlinks 753
wb_load() adds the path to the wbWorkbook object. 741
wb_set_header_footer() now works with special characters 747

wb_get_active_sheet(), wb_set_active_sheet(), wb_get_selected() and wb_set_selected(), wb_get_named_regions() are now wrapper functions. 735

openxlsx2 0.8

Function arguments are now defaulting to snake_case. For the time being, both arguments are accepted and camelCase will be switched to snake_case under the hood. Some examples are currently still displaying camelCase and maybe some camelCase function slipped through. 678
write_formula(), write_data(), write_datatable(), write_comment() are no longer recommended,
Use wb_add_formula(), wb_add_data(), wb_add_data_table(), wb_add_comment() instead.

Order of arguments in wb_add_named_region() changed, because previously overlooked dims argument was added.
In various functions the order of dims was changed, to highlight it's importance
Cleanups
remove deprecated functions
remove deprecated arguments
- xy argument
- arguments col, row, cols, rows. start_col, start_row and gridExpand were deprecated in favor of dims. Row and column vectors can be converted to dims using wb_dims().
- xlsx_file in favor of file in wb_to_df()
deprecating function
- convertToExcelDate() for convert_to_excel_date()
- wb_grid_lines() for wb_set_grid_lines()
make get_cell_refs(), get_date_origin(), guess_col_type(), and write_file(), dataframe_to_dims(), dims_to_dataframe(), wb_get_sheet_name() internal functions
make classes styles_mgr(), wbSheetData, wbWorksheet, wbComment, wbHyperlink internal

wb_dims() was added as a more convenient replacement for rowcol_to_dims().(691 and 702, @olivroy) The new function can take either numeric (for rows or columns) or character (column) vectors, in addition it is able to create dimensions for R objects that are coercible to data frame. This allows the following variants:
wb_dims(1:5, letters)
wb_dims(1:5, 1:26)
wb_dims(x = matrix(1, 5, 26))
wb_dims(x = mtcars, from_col = "C", from_row = 2, row_names = TRUE)
Handling of thread comments is now possible via wb_add_thread(). This includes options to reply and resolve comments.

Improve show_formula. Previously it was called to early in the function and skipped a few cases. 715

Cleanup / revisit documentation and vignettes (682, @olivroy)
The function index has been improved. (717, @olivroy)

openxlsx2 0.7.1

It is now possible to apply a specific theme to a workbook. 630
Removed a few of the former example files and updated the code to use a new default example. This changes internal testing to only run locally if online and external files are required. This reduces the package footprint a little, because 1MB of xlsx files are now excluded. 632
The handling of fmt_txt() objects has been improved. It now creates objects of class fmt_txt with their own print(), +, and as.character() methods. Such objects can now also be used as text in create_comment(). 636
Improve support for inputs with labels attribute. If e.g. a factor label is numeric, we now try to write the label as number. This should impact the way other partially labeled variables are written. 639
Added new wrapper function wb_add_named_style() this supports pre-defined theme aware cell styles like Title or Note. In addition loading of cell styles was improved and additional custom cell styles should be available as well. 628
Provide additional options to write special characters in non-unicode environments. 641
Add wb_add_dxfs_style() as single line wrapper to create dxf styles used in conditional formatting and custom table styles. 665

On load app.xml is now assigned to wb$app. Previously it was loaded but not assigned. 629
Previously if wb_to_df() was used with argument cols, columns that were missing were created at the end of the output frame. Now columns are returned ordered. 631
Fix a bug in wb_load() that was modifying the cell range of conditional formatting. 647

Order of arguments in wb_add_conditional_formatting() changed, because previously overlooked dims argument was added. 642
New argument gradientFill was added to create_dxfs_style(). 651
Special characters are now escaped in conditional formatting. Hence, previously manually escaped conditional formatting needs updates. 666

openxlsx2 0.7

The dims argument of wb_add_formula() can be used to create a array references. A new cm argument was added which might be useful, if formulas previously created addition @ in spreadsheet software. Examples how to use formulas were added to a new vignette. 593
Allow using custom data table styles. This fixes a few minor style inconsistencies. 594
Allow reading and writing hms columns. 601
Import tableStyles with wb_load() and improve dxf style creation. 603
Add fmt_txt() to style character strings. 607
Add new wrapper to ignore worksheet errors wb_add_ignore_error(). 617
Add new wrapper to update table references wb_update_table(). 606

Improve handling of non standard OutDec options. 611
openxlsx2 now does a better job of trying to return character values from classes that are foreign to it. This has been going on for quite some time, although previously we had a bug that treated such classes as numeric, resulting in corrupted xlsx files. 615
We now return a few additional xml arguments from worksheets. 617

openxlsx2 0.6.1

Improve col2int() to accept column ranges like col2int("A:Z"). This should allow using column ranges in various places like wb_merge_cells(cols = "B:D", ...) or wb_read(cols = c("A","C:D")). 575
Add dims argument to wb_add_image() and wb_add_plot(). This can be used to place images starting at a cell or span a cell range. This deprecates xy in wb_add_plot(). This adds colOffset and rowOffset to wb_add_drawing() and wb_add_mschart() and wb_add_chart_xml(). 578
Add skipHiddenCols and skipHiddenRows to wb_to_df(). In this way, hidden columns and rows are ignored, assuming that the person who has hidden them assumes that they are not important. 579
When writing tibble use to.data.frame() just like in the data.table case. 582
Add cleanup internal comment code in write_comment(). This should not impact the workbook wrapper code in wb_add_comment(). 586
Added chain functions for wb_to_df() and wb_load(). 587

openxlsx2 0.6

Styles arguments now accept logical and numeric arguments where applicable. 558
Adding dims argument to wb_clean_sheet(). This allows to clean only a selected range. 563

na.strings = NULL is no longer ignored in write_xlsx() 552
Explicit type conversion to date and datetime is finally available. 551

skipEmptyCols and skipEmptyRows behavior in wb_to_df() related functions was switched to include empty columns that have a name. Previously we would exclude columns if they were empty, even if they had a name. 555
Cleanups in 548
remove deprecated functions
- cloneSheetStyle()
- get_cell_style()
- set_cell_style()
- wb_conditional_formatting()
remove deprecated arguments
- xy argument for write_data_table() interacting functions
- file from xl_open()
- definedName from wb_to_df() interacting functions
deprecating function
- get_named_regions() for wb_get_named_regions()

openxlsx2 0.5.1

Allow hierarchical grouping. wb_group_cols/wb_group_rows now accept nested lists as grouping variable. 537
It is now possible to add form control types Checkbox, Radio and Drop to a workbook using wb_add_form_control(). 533
Improve wb_to_df(fillMergedCells = TRUE) to work better with dimensions. It is now possible to fill cells where the merged cells intersect with the selected dimensions. 541
Speedup cell initialization. This is used in wb_style functions like wb_add_numfmt(). The previous loop was replaced with a faster implementation. 545
Improve date detection in wb_to_df(). This improves date and posix detection with custom date formats. 547
na_strings() is now used as the explicit default value for na.strings parameters in exported workbook functions. 473
waiver functions (i.e., next_worksheet(), current_worksheet(), and na_strings()) are now exports 474

Fixed a bug when loading input with multiple sheets where not every sheet contains a drawing/comment. Previously we assumed that every sheet had a comment and ordered them incorrectly. This caused confusion in spreadsheet software. 536
Fixed a bug with files containing 10 or more external references. In this case we did not load the references in numeric order and instead as "1.xml", "10.xml", ..., "2.xml", ... This jumbled up the external references. 538

openxlsx2 0.5

Improve column and row grouping. It is now possible to group by list, so that you can create various levels of groupings. 486
writeData() calls force(x) to evaluate the object before options are set (#264)
tabColor in wb_add_worksheet() now allows passing wb_color(). 500
Add wb_copy_cells() a wrapper that allows copying cell ranges in a workbook as direct copy, as reference or as value. 515
Experimental option: openxlsx2.string_nums to write string numerics differently. A string numeric is a numeric in a string like: as.character(1.5). The option can be
0 = the current default. Writes string numeric as string (the incorrect way according to spreadsheet software)
1 = writes string numeric as numeric with a character flag (the correct way according to spreadsheet software)
2 = convert all string numeric to numeric when writing

This is experimental, because the impact is somewhat unknown. It might trigger unintended side effects. Feedback is requested.

Enable writing strings as sharedStrings with argument inline_strings = FALSE. This creates a sharedStrings table in openxml that allows to reuse strings in the workbook efficiently and can reduce the file size if a workbook has many cells that are duplicates. 499
Initial implementation of wb_add_pivot_table(). This allows adding native pivot tables to openxlsx2 workbooks. The pivot table area will remain empty until the sheet is opened in spreadsheet software and evaluated successfully. This feature is newly developed and can cause unexpected side effects. Be aware that using it might currently break workbooks.

Reading of files with frozen panes and more than one section node was restored. 495
Fixed a copy and paste mistake in add_border() which used left borders for right borders. 496
Improve XML unescaping. 497
Fix reading and saving workbooks with multiple slicers per sheet. 505
Fix tab selection always selecting the first sheet since #303. 506

Do not export write_data2() anymore. This was used in development in the early stages of the package and should not be used directly anymore.
Only documentation: openxlsx2 defaults to American English 'color' from now on. Though, we fully support the previous 'colour'. Users will not have to adjust their code. Our documentation only lists color, but you can pass colour just the same way you used to. 501 502

openxlsx2 0.4.1

Provide new argument calc_chain to wb_load(). This is set to FALSE per default, to ignore the calculation chain if it is found. This change only reflects files imported from third party spreadsheet software and should not be visible to the user. 461
Tweaks to wb_data(). Dims is now optional and will select data similar to wb_to_df(), similar it allows passing down other wb_to_df() arguments. Though, it probably is a good idea not be to creative passing down arguments, not all will result in a usable wb_data object. 462
Add hidden argument and change the default for heights to NULL in set_row_heights(). This allows changing the row height and/or hiding selected rows. This does not yet provide a way to hide rows per default. 475
Add wb_add_chartsheet() for chart sheet support. Along with internal cleanup around chart sheet code. 466

Fix wb_freeze_pane(). This changes the load logic a bit. Previously we put everything into sheetViews (the frozen pane is part of this). Though wb_freeze_pane() assumes that freezePane is used. We now try to be smart and split sheetViews upon loading. 465
Previously, adding mschart objects to sheets was only possible if (1) the worksheet already contained a drawing (if the workbook was loaded) or (2) to the last sheet of the workbook. This has now been fixed. Adding mschart objects to any worksheet in the workbook is now possible as intended. 458
Really fix double xml escaping when saving. 467
Improving the drawing logic. There are some workbooks with various drawings per sheet and previously there were combinations possible that were not reflecting this. 478

openxlsx2 0.4

Provide rvg support via wb_add_drawing(). This allows integrating rvg plots into xlsx files. 449
Improve print options. Defaults to printing grid lines, if the worksheet contains grid lines. 440
Support reading files with form control. 426
Handle input files with chart extensions. 443
Improve writing styles to workbook. Previously every cell was checked, this has been changed to check unique styles. 423
Implement reading custom file properties. 418
Improved add_named_region(). This function includes now various xml options. 386
Add ... as argument to read_xlsx() and wb_read(). 381
Allow reading files with xml namespace created by third party software. 405

Update or remove calculation chain when overwriting formulas in a workbook. 438
Fix double xml escaping when saving. 435
Minor tweak for POSIXct dates and try to avoid the notorious 29Feb1900. 424
Implement reading customXml folder for input files with connection. 419
Fixed saving files with <sheetPr/> tag. Previously this was wrapped in a second sheetPr node. This issue occurs with xlsm files only. 417
Fixed a case where embedded files were assigned incorrectly in worksheet relationships. This caused corrupted output. 403

Remove merge_ functions for styles. 450
Previously if a loaded workbook contained formulas pointing to cells modified by openxlsx2, these formulas were not updated, once the workbook was opened in spreadsheet software. This is now enforced, unless the option openxlsx2.disableFullCalcOnLoad is set. In this case we would respect the original calculation properties of the workbook.
wb_save() no longer returns the path that the object was saved to, but instead the wbWorkbook object, invisibly. This is consistent with the behavior of others wrappers. 378
Remove never used all.equal.wbWorkbook(). The idea was nice, but it never developed into something useful.
Remove never used wb_chart_sheet() function. 399

Provide set_sheetview() in sheets. Can be used to provide a wbWorkbook function and wrapper in the future. 399

openxlsx2 0.3.1

Functions adding data to a workbook now bring an applyCellStyle argument. If this is TRUE openxlsx2 will apply a numeric style, if FALSE we will simply add the numeric value without additional styling and use the previous cell style. 365
Reading from file or workbook with showFormula now returns all formulas found in the workbook. Previously only those with type e or str were returned. Now we will be able to see formulas like hyperlinks too. 352

Moved data validation list from x14 to data validation. This enables data validation lists without x14 extension openxlsx 386. 347
Removed build_cell_merges() and replaced it with a plain R solution. 390

Improvements to setting column widths. Previously values set by set_col_widths() were a little off. This has now been improved. There are still corner cases where the column width set with openxlsx2 does not match those shown in spreadsheet software. Notable differences can be seen with floating point values (e.g., 10L works while 10.1 is slightly off) and with column width on Mac. 350
Improve rowNames when writing data to worksheet. Previously the name for the rownames column defaulted to 1. This has been changed. Now with data it defaults to an empty cell and with a data table it defaults to _rowNames_. 375
Fix the workbook xml relationship file to not include a reference to shared strings per default. This solves 360 for plain data files written from openxlsx2. 363
Adding cell styles has been streamlined to increase consistency. This includes all style functions like wb_add_font() and covers all cases of hyperlinks. 365
Fix cloning pivot charts. 361
Fix loading and writing files with slicers. Loading would add a few empty slicer xml files to Content_Types and workbook.xml.rels. 361
Align the logic for writing data to empty worksheets and updating/writing to worksheets with data. This removes update_cell_loop() and changes how update_cell() behaves. Not only does this remove duplicated code, it also brings great speed improvements (issue 356). 356
It is now possible to use special characters in formulas without coding. Previously & had to be encoded like & 251

Previously deprecated names.wbWorkbook() and names<-.wbWorkbook() have been removed. 367
Conditional style defaults for create_dxfs_style() have changed to be more permissive. Previously we shipped a default font, default font size and font color. This has been changed to better reflect a behavior the user expects. 343

openxlsx2 0.3

New argument startCol in read to data frame functions wb_to_df(), wb_read() and read_xlsx(). 330
New function wb_colour() to ease working with color vectors used in openxlsx2 styles. 292
Deprecated get_cell_style() and set_cell_style() in favor of newly introduced wrapper functions wb_get_cell_style() and wb_set_cell_style(). 306
Improvements to wb_clone_worksheet(). Cloning of chartsheets as well as worksheets containing charts, pivot tables, drawings and tables is now possible or tweaked. Slicers are removed from the cloned worksheet. 305
Allow writing class data.table. 313
Provide na.numbers for reading functions, that convert numbers to NA in R output. Handle na.strings in write_xlsx(). 301
Add new option to add sparklines with various style options to worksheets: wb_add_sparklines(). Sparklines can be created with create_sparklines(). The manual page contains an example. 280
Add new options to data validation. allow type custom, add arguments errorStyle, errorTitle, error, promptTitle, prompt. 271
Provide wb_clone_sheet_style(). This improves upon the now deprecatedcloneSheetStyle() that existed as an early draft. 233
wb$add_data() now checks earlier for missing x argument. 246

Worksheets added to a wbWorkbook no longer contain default references to the drawings and vmlDrawings directories. Previously, these references were added as rId1 and rId2 even if the worksheet did not contain any drawing (e.g., an image or a chart) or vml drawing (e.g., a comment or a button). In such cases certain third party software, strictly following the references in worksheet or Content_Types complained about missing files and the import of such files failed completely. 311
Implement loading of user defined chartShapes. Previously this was not implemented instead the previous logic assumed that every sheet has a matching drawing. With chartShapes this no longer is true. The number of drawings and the number of worksheets/chartsheets must not match. 323
When loading files with charts, they are now imported into the wbWorkbook object. Previously they were simply copied. This will allow easier interaction with charts in the future. 304
Moving the data validation code from the workbook to the worksheet. Also, data_validation_list() is no longer stored in dataValidationLst. It has been moved to extLst, fixing a bug when saving and adding another data validation list. The code for retrieving the date origin from a workbook has been improved and get_date_origin(wb, origin = TRUE) now returns the origin as an integer from a wbWorkbook. 299
Removed level4 from XML functions. There was only a single use case for a level4 function that has been solved differently. If level4 is needed, this can be solved using a level3 and additional level2 functions. In addition xml_nodes now return nodes for all reachable nestings, therefore xml_node("<a/><a/>", "a") will now return a character vector of length two. For xml_node("<a/><b/>", "a") only a single character vector is returned. 280
Changes to various internal pugixml functions, to improve handling of XML strings. 279
Provide internal helper xml_rm_child() to remove children of XML strings. 273
Fixes a bug in update_cell() that slowed down writing on worksheets with data. In addition, this function has been cleaned up and further improved. It is no longer exported, as users only need to use wb_add_data() or write_data(), each of which calls update_cell() under the hood. 275 276
Various (mostly internal) changes to conditional_formatting. Created style_mgr integration for dxf (cf-styles) and cleaned up internal code. The syntax has changed slightly, see conditional formatting vignette for reference. Add whitespace argument to read_xml(). 268

Order of arguments in reading functions wb_to_df(), wb_read() and read_xls() has changed.

openxlsx2 0.2.1

Data adding functions now ship a dims argument that can be used to determine the startCol and startRow for any x object that is added to the worksheet. Works with add_data(), add_data_table(), add_formula() and their underlying write_ functions as well as with the wrappers.
Provide optional na.strings argument when writing data to sheets. It can be used to add a custom character string when writing numeric data.
Improve writing NA, NaN, and -Inf/Inf. NA will be converted to #N/A; NaN will be converted to #VALUE!; Inf will be converted to #NUM!. The same conversion is not applied when reading from a workbook. 256
Many wbWorkbook methods now contain default sheet values of current_sheet() or next_sheet() (e.g., $add_worksheet(sheet = next_sheet()), $write_data(sheet = curret_sheet()). These internal waiver functions allow the wbWorkbook object to use default expectations for what sheet to interact with. This allows the easier workflow of wb$add_worksheet()$add_data(x = data.frame()) where $add_worksheet() knows to add a new worksheet (with a default name), sets that new worksheet to the current worksheet, and then $add_data() picks up the new sheet and places the data there. 165, 179
New functions wb_add_cell_style() and wb$add_cell_style() to simplify the creation of cell styles for cells on the sheet. This provides a fast way to create cell styles for regions on the worksheet. The cells for which the cell format is to be created must already exist on the worksheet. If the cells already contain a cell format, it will be preserved, except for the updated cell format entries, which will always be created. The function is applied to a continuous cell of the worksheet. 230
New functions wb_add_numfmt() and wb$add_numfmt() to simplify the creation of number formats for cells on the sheet. This provides a fast way to create number formats for regions on the worksheet. The cells for which the number format is to be created must already exist on the worksheet. If the cells already contain a cell style, it will be preserved, except for the number format, which will always be created. The function is applied to a continuous cell of the worksheet. 229
New functions wb_add_font() and wb$add_font() to simplify the creation of fonts for cells on the sheet. This provides a fast way to create fonts for regions on the worksheet. The cells for which the font is to be created must already exist on the worksheet. If the cells already contain a cell style, it will be preserved, except for the font, which will always be created. The function is applied to a continuous cell of the worksheet. 228
New functions wb_add_fill() and wb$add_fill() to simplify the creation of fills for cells on the sheet. This provides a fast way to create color filled regions on the worksheet. The cells for which the fill is to be created must already exist on the worksheet. If the cells already contain a cell style, it will be preserved, except for the filled color, which will always be created. The function is applied to a continuous cell of the worksheet and allows to change the color of every n-th column or row. 222
New functions wb_add_border() and wb$add_border() to simplify the creation of borders for cells on the sheet. This is especially useful when creating surrounding borders with different border styles for various cells. The cells for which the border is to be created must already exist on the worksheet. If the cells already contain a cell style, it will be preserved, except for the border, which will always be created. The function is applied to a continuous cell of the worksheet and allows to change the horizontal and vertical internal border grid independently. 220
Enable reading tables with wb_to_df(). Tables are handled similar to defined names. 193
Several enhancements have been added for checking and validation worksheet names 165
When adding a new worksheet via wbWorkbook$add_worksheet() the provided name is checked for illegal characters (see note in Breaking changes)
wbWorkbook$get_sheet_names() (wb_get_sheet_names() wrapper) added. These return both the formatted and original sheet names
wbWorkbook$set_sheet_names() (wb_set_sheet_names()) added
- these make names.wbWorkbook() and names<-.wbWorkbook() deprecated
- wbWorkbook$setSheetName() deprecated
clean_worksheet_names() added to support removing characters that are not allowed in worksheet names

Various fixes to enable handling of non unicode R environments 243
Fix an issue with broken pageSetup reference causing corrupt excel files 216
Fix reading and writing comments from workbooks that already provide comments 209
Fix an issue with broken xml in Excels vml files and enable opening xlsm files with wb$open() 202
Fix reading and writing on non UTF-8 systems 198 199 207
Instruct parser to import nodes with whitespaces. This fixes a complaint in spreadsheet software. 189
Fix reading file without row attribute. 187 190
Remove reference to printerSettings.bin when loading. This binary blob is not included and the reference caused file corruption warnings. 185
Fix loading and writing xlsx files with with workbook$extLst. Previously if the loaded sheet contains a slicer, a second extLst was added which confused spreadsheet software. Now both are combined into a single node.
Fix writing xlsx file with multiple entries of conditional formatting type databar on any sheet. 174
Cell fields cm, ph and vm are now implemented for reading and writing. This is the first step to handle functions that use metadata. 173
wbWorkbook: $open() no longer overwrites the $path field to the temporary file 171
xl_open() works (better) on Windows 170

When writing to existing workbooks, the default value for removeCellStyle is now FALSE. Therefore if a cell contains a style, it is attempted to replace the value, but not the style of the cell itself.
wb_conditional_formatting() is deprecated in favor of wb_add_conditional_formatting() and wbWorkbook$add_conditional_formatting().
type must now match exactly one of: "expression", "colorScale", "dataBar", "duplicatedValues", "containsText", "notContainsText", "beginsWith", "endsWith", "between", "topN", "bottomN"
Assigning a new worksheet with an illegal character now prompts an error 165. See ?clean_worksheet_name for an easy method of replacing bad characters.
openxlsx2Coerce() (which was called on x objects when adding data to a workbook) has been removed. Users can no longer pass some arbitrary objects and will need to format these objects appropriately or rely on as.data.frame methods 167
xl_open(file = ) is no longer valid and will throw a warning; first argument has been changes to x to highlight that xl_open() can be called on a file path or a wbWorkbook object 171

Remove wb$createFontNode() which was never used.
Switch to modern xlsx template, when creating workbooks. Imported workbooks will use the imported template
Rewrite wb$tables to use a data frame approach. This simplifies the code a bit and makes it easier to implement more upcoming changes 191
Update of internal pugixml library
The two functions write_data() and write_datatable() now use the same internal function write_data_table() to add data to the sheet. This simplifies the code and ensures that both functions are tested. In the same pull request, the documentation has been updated and the stack= option, which was not present before, has been removed 175
wbWorkbook$validate_sheet() added as an object methods
private wbWorkbook field original_sheet_names added to track the original names passed to sheets
private $get_sheet() removed in favor of more explicit
private wbWorkbook methods additions:
$get_sheet_id_max(), $get_sheet_index() for getting ids
$get_sheet_name() for getting a sheet name
$set_single_sheet_name() for setting sheet names
$pappend() general private appending
$validate_new_sheet() for checking new sheet names
$append_workbook_field() for self$workbook[[field]]
$append_sheet_rels() for self$worksheet_rels[[sheet]]
$get_worksheet() to replace $ws()

openxlsx2 0.2.0

Added a NEWS.md file to track changes to the package.
First public release

JanMarvin/openxlsx2 documentation built on April 17, 2025, 6:12 p.m.

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JanMarvin/openxlsx2 Read, Write and Edit 'xlsx' Files

NEWS.md In JanMarvin/openxlsx2: Read, Write and Edit 'xlsx' Files

openxlsx2 (development version)

New features

Fixes

Internal changes

openxlsx2 1.14

New features

Fixes

Breaking changes

openxlsx2 1.13

New features

Fixes

Internal changes

Breaking changes

openxlsx2 1.12

New features

Fixes

Breaking changes

openxlsx2 1.11

New features

Fixes

openxlsx2 1.10

New features

Fixes

Internal changes

openxlsx2 1.9

New features

Fixes

openxlsx2 1.8

Maintenance

New features

Fixes

openxlsx2 1.7

New features

Fixes

openxlsx2 1.6

New features

Fixes

openxlsx2 1.5

New features

Fixes

openxlsx2 1.4

New features

Fixes

Breaking changes

Maintenance

openxlsx2 1.3

Documentation improvement

New features

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openxlsx2 1.2

New features

Fixes

openxlsx2 1.1

New features

Fixes

openxlsx2 1.0

Breaking changes

Deprecated functions

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Documentation improvement

Fixes

Internal changes

openxlsx2 0.8

API Change

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Refactoring

openxlsx2 0.7.1

New features

Fixes

Breaking changes

openxlsx2 0.7

New features

Fixes

openxlsx2 0.6.1

New features

openxlsx2 0.6

JanMarvin/openxlsx2
Read, Write and Edit 'xlsx' Files

NEWS.md
In JanMarvin/openxlsx2: Read, Write and Edit 'xlsx' Files