Spreadsheet cells are mapped one by one to output fields in the same order as on the input. If you select another metadata, the cells will be remapped automatically to the new fields.

Content is mapped to the record field with the same name or label. For each mapped leading cell, the component reads its contents (string) and tries to find a matching field with the same name or label (see Field Name vs. Label vs. Description).

Fields that could not be mapped to the current file are marked as unresolved. You can either map these explicitly, unmap them or modify output metadata.

Note that unresolved cells are not a bad thing – for example, you might read a group of similar input files, each containing just a subset of possible columns. Mappings with unresolved cells do not result in your graph failing on execution.

In Explicit mapping, you explicitly decide which cells are mapped to which record fields.

This way, you can have, for example, a whole sheet mapped by order with only one cell, which does not fit the mapping, mapped explicitly to a correct field.

To use explicit mapping, go to Selected cells and fill in Cell value with the target field.

If a cell is not mapped yet, you might need to switch Mapping mode to Explicit, first. You can also explicitly map a cell to a field by dragging the field from metadata viewer onto the cell. Opposite direction also works (dragging a cell to a field), but you have to first click the cell to select it, because only selected cell can be dragged. Note that you can drag-and-drop more fields/cells at once.

In auto mapping, the first spreadsheet row is whole mapped by name with data offset equal to 1.

The auto mapping is used, if you leave all the Mapping component property completely blank.

Another type of auto mapping is created when you map no cell in the mapping editor, but confirm the mapping by clicking the OK button. Then only basic mapping properties will be stored in the Mapping attribute. This way, you can change default Rows per record or Data offset used by the basic implicit mapping mentioned above (if default offset is set to 0, mapping by name is used instead of mapping by name).

Alternatively, by switching the reading Orientation property, the first column gets implicitly mapped instead of the first row.

Target output field for Excel format pattern (as in Excel’s right-click menu – Format Cells).

Select a leading cell and set the Field for format property (see Mapping Properties figure) to the target field of type string. You can use this approach even if read data cells have various formats (e.g. different currencies).

Formats can also be extracted during the one-time metadata extraction process. In metadata, format is taken from a single cell which you supply as a sample value to the metadata extraction wizard. See Extracting Metadata from an XLS(X) File.

If a cell has its format specified by the Excel format string (excel:), SpreadsheetDataReader can read it back. Other readers would ignore it. For further reading on format strings, see Formatting cells (Field with format).

Target output field for Excel formulas.

Select a leading cell and set the Field for formula property (see Mapping Properties figure) to the target field of type string.

Target output field for hyperlink address.

Select a leading cell and set the Field for hyperlink property (see Mapping Properties figure) to the target field of type string.

Hyperlinks may generally span over multiple cells, but hyperlink reading is only supported for single-cell hyperlinks.

Data offsets (global) determines where data is taken from. Basically, its value represents 'a number of rows (in vertical mode) or columns (in horizontal mode) to be omitted - relative to the leading cell (orange)'.

Click the arrow buttons in the top right corner to adjust data offsets for the whole spreadsheet. Additionally, you can click the spinner in the Selected cells area of each leading cell (the orange one) to adjust data offset locally, i.e. for a particular column only.

Notice how modifying data offset is visualized in the sheet preview – the 'omitted' rows change color. By following dashed cells, which appear when you click a leading cell, you can quickly state where your record will start at.

Rows per record is a Global property specifying how many rows form one record. Best imagined if you look at the figure below:

Combination of Data offsets (global and local) and Rows per record – you can put the settings described in preceding bullet points together. See example:

Max number of records is a Global property which you can specify via component attributes, too (see SpreadsheetDataReader Attributes). If you reduce it, you will notice the number of dashed cells in the spreadsheet preview reduces as well (highlighting only the cells which will be mapped to records in fact).

In some spreadsheets, data in one column gets mixed, but you still need to process it all into one record. For example, imagine a column containing first names in odd rows and surnames in even rows one after another. In that case, you will create two leading cells above each other to be able to read both first names and surnames. Remember to set Rows per record to an appropriate value (2 in this example) not to read same data in all leading cells. Also, mind raising Data offset in the upper leading cell to start reading data where it truly begins. Look at the figure below: