# zdavatz/spreadsheet

The Ruby Spreadsheet by ywesee GmbH

Repository: https://github.com/zdavatz/spreadsheet
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/spreadsheet
Homepage: http://spreadsheet.ch
Language: Ruby
License: GPL-3.0
License Family: copyleft
Topics: excel, xls, spreadsheet, ruby, ruby-spreadsheet, gplv3
Last push: 2026-04-21T14:39:37+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 67/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 78, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5255, "days_push": 134, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1150, forks 234 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:46.536758+00:00)

## What it is
A Ruby library for reading, writing, and modifying Microsoft Excel (XLS) spreadsheet documents. It is a rewrite of the Spreadsheet::Excel and ParseExcel libraries and supports only the legacy XLS binary format, not XLSX.

## Use cases
- read data from xls files in ruby
- generate excel reports from ruby
- modify existing xls spreadsheets programmatically
- parse legacy excel 97-2003 files
- hide or group rows and columns in excel files
- process large excel files with low memory usage

## When to choose
- you need to read or write legacy XLS (BIFF) files in Ruby
- you need to modify existing Excel documents including outline/grouping features
- you work with Ruby 2.6+ or JRuby and want a pure-Ruby spreadsheet library

## When to avoid
- you need XLSX (Open XML) support - this library only handles XLS
- you need formula reading/writing or full style support, which are still on the roadmap
- you cannot use GPLv3 and cannot obtain a commercial license
- you need cell format fidelity - number formats may be lost and returned as floats

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: maintenance
- function: parser, file-system, data-science
- domain: spreadsheets, files, developer-tools
- platform: ruby, jvm, cross-platform
- tags: excel, xls, spreadsheet, biff, read-write, gplv3

## Member repositories
- zdavatz/spreadsheet (main) score 67

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:46.536758+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T06:33:42.578641+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/zdavatz/spreadsheet (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:46.536758+00:00, sha 96160dadf5b6)
  - homepage: http://spreadsheet.ch (fetched 2026-08-29T12:38:38.695620+00:00, sha 4513304474b9)
  - site_page: https://spreadsheet.ch/category/new-features (fetched 2026-08-29T12:38:38.704766+00:00, sha 6435e472a70e)
  - site_page: https://spreadsheet.ch/2010/11/26/getting-ready-to-add-some-new-features-to-ruby-spreadsheet (fetched 2026-08-29T12:38:38.706699+00:00, sha d32974680ac3)
  - site_page: https://spreadsheet.ch/about (fetched 2026-08-29T12:38:38.708283+00:00, sha 8c7aa1e96049)
  - site_page: https://spreadsheet.ch/getting-started-with-ruby-spreadsheet (fetched 2026-08-29T12:38:38.709881+00:00, sha bcdd6b748804)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.