Reading and writing from xls and xlsx excel file in java

calendar_today Asked Apr 14, 2013
thumb_up 15 upvotes
history Updated April 16, 2026

Question posted 2013 · +8 upvotes

I am writing a program which needs to read and write from excel files, irrespective of the format(xls or xlsx).

I am aware of the Apache POI, but it seems it has different classes to handle xls file(HSSF) and xlsx(XSSF) files.

Anyone aware of how I might achieve what I am trying to do here. (Ideas for using an API other than POI are also welcome).

Accepted answer +15 upvotes

It’s very easy, just use the common SpreadSheet interfaces

Your code would look something like:

 Workbook wb = WorkbookFactory.create(new File("myFile.xls")); // Or .xlsx
 Sheet s = wb.getSheet(0);
 Row r1 = s.getRow(0);
 r1.createCell(4).setCellValue(4.5);
 r1.createCell(5).setCellValue("Hello");

 FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream("newFile.xls"); // Or .xlsx
 wb.write(out);
 out.close();

You can read, write, edit etc an existing file, both .xls and .xlsx, with exactly the same code as long as you use the common interfaces

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