The Microsoft Excel File Format - OpenOffice.org

4 Worksheet/Workbook Stream
4.11 Shared String Table (BIFF8)
4.11.1 The SST Record
Definition: Shared String Table
A BIFF8 workbook collects the strings of all text cells in a global list, the Shared String Table. This table is
located in the record SST in the Workbook Globals Substream (➜4.2.5).
An SST record may be followed by an EXTSST record which stores stream positions for a string hash table.
Common structure of the Shared String Table, BIFF8:
● SST ➜5.100
○ EXTSST ➜5.42
Text cells are represented by LABELSST records (➜5.65) which contain indexes into the SST record. For reading Excel
files, only the SST record and the LABELSST records are important.
Example: A workbook contains anywhere the strings “AAA”, “BBB” and “CCC”.
BOF
Type = workbook globals
Workbook globals records
SST Total number of strings in document = 4, strings in SST = 3
String 0 = “AAA”
String 1 = “BBB”
String 2 = “CCC”
EXTSST
See below
Workbook globals records
EOF
BOF
Type = worksheet
Cell records
LABELSST
LABELSST
String index = 0 (results in “AAA”)
String index = 2 (results in “CCC”)
Cell records
LABELSST
LABELSST
String index = 1 (results in “BBB”)
String index = 0 (results in “AAA”)
Cell records
EOF
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