Excel Sheet Appender (XLS)

This Node Is Deprecated — This node is kept for backwards-compatibility, but the usage in new workflows is no longer recommended. The documentation below might contain more information.

This node writes the input data table into a spreadsheet and appends it to an existing workbook. If no workbook is present, a new one will be created. The files can then be read with other applications such as Microsoft Excel.

The node supports three formats chosen by file extension:

.xls format: This is the file format which was used by default up until Excel 2003. The maximum number of columns held by a spreadsheet of this format is 256 (all additional columns in the data table are truncated). If the input data table has more than 65536 rows, it is split into multiple spreadsheets (all stored in the created workbook).
.xlsx format: The Office Open XML format is the file format used by default from Excel 2007 onwards.
.xlsm format: This node can append data to macro-enabled workbooks, however, new workbooks cannot be created this way.

Specifying a remote URL as the destination location will force the node to overwrite this file as it is not possible to determine whether this location already exists. If no extension is specified, the file will be written in the .xlsx format.

Options

Output location: Enter a valid file name or URL. You can also choose a previously selected location from the drop-down list, or select a file from the "Browse..." dialog.
Abort if file does not exist: Aborts the execution if the specified file does not exist. If this option is not selected, a new file will be created.
Abort if sheet already exists: If a sheet with the same name does already exist, then the execution will fail. If this option is not selected, the old sheet will be replaced by the new one.
Open file after execution: Opens the file after it has been successfully created. The file will be opened in the default application of the system. This might not be supported by every system.
Sheet name: Name of the sheet that will be created. If left empty, the name of the input table will be used.
Write column header: If checked, the column names are written out in the first row of the spreadsheet.
Write row ID: If checked, the row IDs are added to the output, in the first column of the spreadsheet.
Evaluate Formulas on write: If checked, all formulas in the file will be evaluated after the sheet has been written. This is useful if other sheets in the file refer to the data just written and their content needs updating.
Missing Value Pattern: Enter a pattern that is used for missing data values. If not specified, the corresponding data cell of the spreadsheet stays empty.
Autosize columns: Fits each column's width to its content.
Portrait/Landscape: Sets the print format to portrait or landscape.
Paper size: Sets the paper size in the print setup.
Exclude/Include columns: Select the columns that will be appended to the file. If the columns in the input table change, they will automatically be excluded.

Input Ports

: The data table to write out.

Output Ports

This node has no output ports

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Installation

To use this node in KNIME, install the extension KNIME Excel Support from the below update site following our NodePit Product and Node Installation Guide:

v5.9

A zipped version of the software site can be downloaded here.

Plugin provider: KNIME AG, Zurich, Switzerland

Plugin version: 5.9.0.v202511130854

On NodePit since: 2025-12-11

Last update: 2026-01-06

Tags: Deprecated

KNIME versions: Since v3.6

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