Access worksheet names from Excel file with Google Apps Script (without Drive.Files.insert)

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In a Google App Script attached to a Google Sheet, I have the file ID of an excel file. I want to read the worksheet names of that excel file. The tutorials I've seen on conversion load the excel file as a blob then write it to Drive as a Google Sheet, then read it.

Is there a way to do this that does not to create artifacts that I then need to delete? The reasoning is that I am concerned with the following: safety if there's a bug (the wrong thing gets deleted), additional processing time (I need to process a long list of excel files), and leftover artifacts if the script aborts unexpectedly between inserting and deleting.

Thank you!

google-apps-script google-sheets excel
1 Answers

Answering your questions, the reason the tutorials first convert the Excel file to a Google Sheet is to interact with it (in your case, to gather the worksheet names) it's because the Google APIs or Apps Script cannot interact with the Excel file as row data, and Google needs to convert the file to something readable using Google APIs.

A workaround for this will be to use Excel JavaScript API to read the information original Excel file, you can use externals API in Apps Script since it's based in JavaScript, so you will use Apps Script as an IDE.

However, you can do the same with any other IDE that works with JavaScript.

There are some examples on how to list the worksheets using the Excel JavaScript API in this blog.

If you will like to keep using Google APIs, and using the Google Apps Script built-in services. You will need to convert the file to Google Sheets.

Updating Answer:

You can review more about the Excel Services API services here.

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