Converting complex structured XML data into an Excel table and opening it directly in Microsoft Office can significantly simplify the process of accessing and analyzing the data within a spreadsheet.

Validation

Every XML file that is converted to Excel undergoes a thorough verification process to ensure the accuracy and quality of the conversion. This includes analyzing and validating the XML file for errors. If any errors are detected, the file will not be processed to ensure the integrity of the resulting Excel spreadsheet.

Data Parsing

Before extracting data from the XML format, a parser reads and analyzes the data to ensure that it is accurately and efficiently processed.

Data Transformation

After the data is extracted from the XML format, the next step is to transform it into a tabular format that is compatible with spreadsheet software.

XML converter uses the following rules to transform the data:

• Each XML tag or attribute represents a separate table column
• Each data element within a tag represents a separate table cell
• The entire data set is organized based on higher-level XML tags

Saving to Excel file

If the conversion is successful, the data will be changed to a tabular representation; then, it will be saved as an Excel document.

The term XML is an acronym known for "Extensible Markup Language". It can be edited in any text editor and can be read by both humans and machines.

Tags

The names of the tags should be properly defined, beginning with a character rather than arithmetic value.

For instance,

• valid: <Product>
• not valid: <1stWeekData>

Start and End Tags

There are defined a start-tag or opening tag, for example: <Product>,

and a corresponding end-tag or closing tag, for example: </Product>.

Root Element

There can be only one root element in an XML document. The root element consists of a start tag and an end tag, and the rest of the content should be inserted between these tags.

An example of the root element is shown below:

  <Products>
    ..the content goes here
  </Products>

Special Characters Escaping

Special characters in the content, like <, >, &, ' and " should be escaped as follows:

• < stands for <
• > stands for >
• & stands for &
• ' stands for '
• " stands for "

Encoding

XML encoding specifies how the characters in an XML document are represented. It is defined in the XML file as the first line, as shown below:

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

Our XML to Excel converter supports all encoding formats, but the most commonly used encoding is "UTF-8".

File Format Information

You can learn about XML file format on the following resources:

• XML file format at File.org
• XML file format at FILExt.com

The spreadsheet format is the file format used in Microsoft Excel to store and organize data in a tabular layout. There are two different extensions for spreadsheet files depending on the version of Excel being used: XLS for Microsoft Office 97-2007 and XLSX for Microsoft Office 2007 and later.

Our XML to Excel converter supports both the XLSX and XLS formats, allowing you to choose the option that best meets your specific needs. By default, the converter saves the data in the XLSX format, which is compatible with newer versions of Excel. However, if you need to open the Excel spreadsheet in an older version of the software, you can select the XLS format instead.

Excel Limits (XLSX - Excel 2007+)

XLSX format has the following limits when it is used with Microsoft Office:

• Maximum number of rows: 1,048,576 rows
• Maximum number of columns: 16,384 columns (last column is "XFD")
• Maximum column width: 255 characters
• Maximum number of characters in a cell: 32,767 characters
• Maximum number of Hyperlinks in a worksheet: 66,530 hyperlinks

If you are dealing with a large amount of data and are experiencing issues related to the Excel format limits, you may want to consider using the CSV (Comma Separated Values) format as an alternative output format.

Check out our XML to CSV converter.

Excel Limits (XLS - Excel 97-2007)

XLS format used in Excel 97-2007 has the following limits:

• Maximum number of rows: 65,536 rows
• Maximum number of columns: 256 columns (last column is "IV")

File Format Information

If you want to learn more about spreadsheet formats and their features and capabilities, these resources may be helpful:

• XLSX at File.org
• XLS at File.org
• XLSX at FILExt.com
• XLS at FILExt.com

XML to CSV Converter was used to convert large XML files into CSV format with additional data processing (data filtering and fields mapping).

Read our use-case by the following link: Custom Converter Use Case: Conversion of Large XML file to CSV.

In addition to converting XML to Excel, our tool also supports the reverse conversion from Excel to XML.

For that use our Excel to XML Converter.

Read more details about the process in the following article:
Convert Excel to Structured XML document with nested levels.