What is the better API to Reading Excel sheets in java - JXL or Apache POI

Question

Which of the 2 APIs is simpler to read write edit excel sheets   Do these APIs not support CSV extensions    Using JXL for file xls and file xlsx  I get an exception like    jxl read biff BiffException  Unable to recognize OLE stream     at jxl read biff CompoundFile  lt init gt  CompoundFile java 116      at jxl read biff File  lt init gt  File java 127      at jxl Workbook getWorkbook Workbook java 268      at core ReadXLSheet contentReading ReadXLSheet java 46      at core ReadXLSheet init ReadXLSheet java 22      at core ReadXLSheet main ReadXLSheet java 72    Both for  xls and  xlsx extensions  Java Version I am using is   JDK1 6

User · Answer

For reading  plain  CSV files in Java  there is a library called OpenCSV  available here  http   opencsv sourceforge net

User · Answer

I am not familiar with JXL and but we use POI  POI is well maintained and can handle both the binary  xls format and the new xml based format that was introduced in Office 2007   CSV files are not excel files  they are text based files  so these libraries don t read them  You will need to parse out a CSV file yourself  I am not aware of any CSV file libraries  but I haven t looked either

User · Answer

I have used both JXL  now  JExcel   and Apache POI   At first I used JXL  but now I use Apache POI   First  here are the things where both APIs have the same end functionality    Both are free Cell styling  alignment  backgrounds  colors and patterns   borders  types and colors   font support  font names  colors  size  bold  italic  strikeout  underline  Formulas Hyperlinks Merged cell regions Size of rows and columns Data formatting  Numbers and Dates Text wrapping within cells Freeze Panes Header Footer support Read Write existing and new spreadsheets Both attempt to keep existing objects in spreadsheets they read in intact as far as possible    However  there are many differences    Perhaps the most significant difference is that Java JXL does not support the Excel 2007    xlsx  format  it only supports the old BIFF  binary    xls  format   Apache POI supports both with a common design  Additionally  the Java portion of the JXL API was last updated in 2009  3 years  4 months ago as I write this   although it looks like there is a C  API   Apache POI is actively maintained  JXL doesn t support Conditional Formatting  Apache POI does  although this is not that significant  because you can conditionally format cells with your own code  JXL doesn t support rich text formatting  i e  different formatting within a text string  Apache POI does support it  JXL only supports certain text rotations  horizontal vertical    - 45 degrees  and stacked  Apache POI supports any integer number of degrees plus stacked  JXL doesn t support drawing shapes  Apache POI does  JXL supports most Page Setup settings such as Landscape Portrait  Margins  Paper size  and Zoom   Apache POI supports all of that plus Repeating Rows and Columns  JXL doesn t support Split Panes  Apache POI does  JXL doesn t support Chart creation or manipulation  that support isn t there yet in Apache POI  but an API is slowly starting to form  Apache POI has a more extensive set of documentation and examples available than JXL    Additionally  POI contains not just the main  usermodel  API  but also an event-based API if all you want to do is read the spreadsheet content   In conclusion  because of the better documentation  more features  active development  and Excel 2007  format support  I use Apache POI

User · Answer

I have used POI   If you use that  keep on eye those cell formatters  create one and use it several times instead of creating each time for cell  it isa huge memory consumption difference or large data

[java] What is the better API to Reading Excel sheets in java - JXL or Apache POI

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