Number Duck

v3.0.7 [J70]

Copyright (C) 2012-2025, File Scribe

https://numberduck.com

🦆 About

Number Duck is a programming library for developers to read and write Microsoft Excel compatible spreadsheets from a variety of languages.

See NumberDuck.html for API details, or check the example folders.

🚧 Installation

There are currently three ways to build Number Duck.

Source

Since Number Duck is delivered as source, you can just drop the NumberDuck.cpp and NumberDuck.hpp files into your project.

CMake

Alternatively you can use CMake to build and install a static library locally, by calling CMake with the SIMPLE_OUTPUT flag, eg:

cmake -S . -B _build -DSIMPLE_OUTPUT=true
cmake --build _build
sudo cmake --install _build

This will build Number Duck (in the _build directory) and copy it to the default search paths for includes and libraries, so then you can just #include <NumberDuck.hpp> in your code and link to NumberDuck, eg:

g++ SimpleExample.cpp -lNumberDuck

CPM.cmake

Number Duck has been tested with the CPM.cmake dependancy manager and works successfully.

CPMAddPackage("gh:NumberDuck/[email protected]")

💾 Saving and Loading a Spreadsheet

Here is a simple example of writing to a spreadsheet, and then reading it back in.

#include "../NumberDuck.hpp"

#include <stdio.h>

using namespace NumberDuck;

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
	printf("Simple Example\n");
	printf("Create a spreadsheet!\n\n");

	Workbook* pWorkbook = new Workbook(Workbook::License::AGPL);
	Worksheet* pWorksheet = pWorkbook->GetWorksheetByIndex(0);

	Cell* pCell = pWorksheet->GetCellByAddress("A1");
	pCell->SetString("Totally cool spreadsheet!");

	pWorksheet->GetCell(1,1)->SetFloat(3.1417f);

	pWorkbook->Save("SimpleExample.xls", Workbook::FileType::XLS);
	delete pWorkbook;

	Workbook* pWorkbookIn = new Workbook(Workbook::License::AGPL);
	if (pWorkbookIn->Load("SimpleExample.xls"))
	{
		Worksheet* pWorksheetIn = pWorkbookIn->GetWorksheetByIndex(0);
		Cell* pCellIn = pWorksheetIn->GetCell(0,0);
		printf("Cell Contents: %s\n", pCellIn->GetString());
	}

	delete pWorkbookIn;

	return 0;
}

More how to code in the example folders above, or at https://numberduck.com/docs

👮 License

Number Duck is dual licensed as Open Source (AGPLv3) and commercial closed source.

Closed source licenses may be purchased from https://numberduck.com

Additional third party libraries (TinyXML2, Miniz) are licensed seperately, see License-ThirdParty.txt for more information.