Convert JSON to XLS Online

Paste a JSON table below, edit it if you need to, and get XLS back. The conversion runs in your browser, so nothing is uploaded, there is no size limit and there is no signup.

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Nothing here is uploaded. The parsing happens on this page.
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The output will appear here once there is a table to convert.

What JSON is

JSON is a text format for nested data: objects with named keys, arrays, strings, numbers, booleans and null. It has no date type and no comments.

Every web API, most configuration files and anything that talks to JavaScript.

What XLS is

An Excel workbook is a zip archive of XML parts describing sheets, cells, formulas, styles and charts. The .xlsx extension is that format; .xls is the older binary one from before 2007.

Finance, operations and anyone who received a file from finance or operations.

What changes when you convert JSON to XLS

Four shapes all read correctly: an array of objects, an array of arrays with a header row, an object of column arrays, and an object keyed by row id. A single wrapper key holding the array, which is how most APIs reply, is unwrapped automatically. Nested objects are flattened one level into dotted keys; anything deeper is kept as JSON text in the cell, because a table cannot hold a tree.

You get a single sheet with a header row and column widths sized to the content. Values are written as text unless type inference is on, which keeps identifiers like 0044 or 007 intact.

What carries over from JSON to XLS

One property of the JSON has no home in Excel, and it is worth knowing which before you convert.

JSON can hold a value that is itself a list or an object. Excel has only flat cells, so nested values are flattened into one cell rather than being spread across columns.

The keys stop being repeated: Excel writes the column names once at the top, so the same table takes noticeably less space.

Both formats record types, so numbers, booleans and nulls survive as themselves rather than as text.

Questions

How do I convert JSON to XLS?

Paste your JSON into the box above or drop the file onto it. Check the table in the grid, then copy or download the XLS from the output panel. It takes one step and the data never leaves your browser.

Why did my zip code lose its leading zero?

Type inference turned the text 07030 into the number 7030. Tablizer leaves inference off by default for exactly this reason, and refuses to convert any value starting with a zero followed by a digit even when it is on.

Does converting to Excel keep my formulas?

No. A table has values, not formulas. If your source came from Excel in the first place, the formulas were already resolved to their results before they reached this page. Anything that was =SUM(A1:A10) arrives as the number it produced.

What happens to nested values?

Excel has no nested cell, so a list or object inside a JSON value is flattened into a single cell rather than expanded into extra columns. Split it before converting if the parts need to be separate.

Is there a limit on file size?

No. The work happens on your own machine, so the limit is your machine's memory rather than an upload cap. A file with tens of thousands of rows converts in a second or two.

Is my data uploaded anywhere?

No. The parsing and generating are done by JavaScript running on this page. You can watch the network tab while you convert and see that nothing is sent.

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