@office-open/xml

XML parsing and serialization for Office Open XML. Zero dependencies, pure TypeScript.

Features

• Zero Dependencies - No external runtime dependencies, pure TypeScript implementation
• parse() / stringify() - XML string ↔ Element tree, OOXML-optimized
• Element Type - Tolerant element model for round-tripping Office Open XML parts
• escapeXml() / unescapeXml() - Low-level XML entity escaping
• OOXML Optimized - Implements the options needed for Office Open XML document generation and parsing

Installation

# pnpm
pnpm add @office-open/xml

# npm
npm install @office-open/xml

# yarn
yarn add @office-open/xml

# bun
bun add @office-open/xml

Quick Start

import { parse, stringify } from "@office-open/xml";

// Parse XML to an Element tree
const doc = parse("<w:t>Hello</w:t>");

// Serialize an Element tree back to XML
const xml = stringify(doc);

API

parse(xmlString, options?)

Parse an XML string into an Element tree. Options include compact, trim, nativeType, captureSpacesBetweenElements, the ignore* flags, and the *Fn transformation hooks.

stringify(element, options?)

Serialize an Element tree to an XML string. Options include spaces (indentation), the ignore* flags, and the *Fn hooks.

escapeXml(str) / unescapeXml(str)

Low-level XML entity escaping and unescaping.

Element

The tolerant element type used across all office-open packages:

interface Element {
  declaration?: { attributes?: DeclarationAttributes };
  attributes?: Attributes;
  type?: string;
  name?: string;
  text?: string | number | boolean;
  cdata?: string;
  comment?: string;
  elements?: Element[];
}

Benchmark

Performance vs txml, xml-js, and xml (higher ops/s is better, Windows 11; each scenario runs under both Node 24 and Bun 1.4). @office-open/xml is a drop-in replacement for xml-js and xml. The xml (npm) package is generation-only (no parser), so it only appears under stringify. Bun.XML is Bun-only and its compact parse mode is lossy (#text runs concatenate, same-name children collapse into keyed arrays), so it is a throughput reference rather than a drop-in option.

txml skips entity encoding by default (encodeEntities: false), which emits invalid XML when text contains &, <, or >; the txml column shows that raw mode and the txml (entities) column is the output-equivalent mode.

parse() — XML string → Element tree

| Scenario | Runtime | @office-open/xml | txml | xml-js | Bun.XML.parse | | ------------- | ------- | ---------------- | ------------- | ------------- | ------------- | | simple XML | Node 24 | 1,301,742 ops/s | 983,046 ops/s | 93,951 ops/s | — | | | Bun 1.4 | 1,906,525 ops/s | 616,562 ops/s | 161,894 ops/s | 828,554 ops/s | | complex OOXML | Node 24 | 423,536 ops/s | 388,743 ops/s | 49,771 ops/s | — | | | Bun 1.4 | 483,512 ops/s | 241,036 ops/s | 63,029 ops/s | 451,177 ops/s |

stringify() — Element tree → XML string

| Scenario | Runtime | @office-open/xml | txml (entities) | txml | xml-js | xml (npm) | Bun.XML.stringify | | -------------- | ------- | ---------------- | --------------- | --------------- | ------------- | ------------- | ----------------- | | simple element | Node 24 | 2,049,617 ops/s | 1,255,456 ops/s | 2,765,770 ops/s | 190,783 ops/s | 303,724 ops/s | — | | | Bun 1.4 | 2,588,728 ops/s | 1,721,498 ops/s | 4,248,377 ops/s | 438,430 ops/s | 483,526 ops/s | 584,746 ops/s | | complex OOXML | Node 24 | 583,811 ops/s | 447,274 ops/s | 1,326,397 ops/s | 130,335 ops/s | 172,258 ops/s | — | | | Bun 1.4 | 510,448 ops/s | 528,375 ops/s | 2,303,173 ops/s | 226,645 ops/s | 292,534 ops/s | 251,444 ops/s |

Documentation

• Documentation — guides, API reference, and examples
• Changelog — release notes
• Report Issues — bug reports and feature requests

Related Packages

• office-open — all formats + CLI + AI SDK tools in one install
• @office-open/docx — Word (.docx)
• @office-open/pptx — PowerPoint (.pptx)
• @office-open/xlsx — Excel (.xlsx)
• @office-open/core — shared OOXML infrastructure

License

• MIT © Demo Macro