office-oxide for Node.js — The Fastest Office Document Library for JavaScript & TypeScript

Native Node.js bindings for office_oxide — a fast Rust library for parsing, converting, and editing Office documents (DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, DOC, XLS, PPT).

Links directly against the Rust C FFI via koffi. No node-gyp build step. Pre-built native libraries are shipped for Linux, macOS, and Windows (x64 + arm64).

Part of the office_oxide toolkit. Same Rust core, same pass rate as the Rust, Python, Go, C# / .NET, and WASM bindings.

For running in browsers, Deno, Bun, or edge runtimes, use the sibling office-oxide-wasm package instead.

Quick Start

npm install office-oxide

import { Document } from 'office-oxide';

const doc = Document.open('report.docx');
try {
  console.log(doc.format);       // "docx"
  console.log(doc.plainText());
  console.log(doc.toMarkdown());
  console.log(doc.toIr());       // structured, format-agnostic IR
} finally { doc.close(); }

With the disposable protocol (Node 22+):

using doc = Document.open('report.docx');
console.log(doc.plainText());

Why office-oxide?

• Fast — 0.8ms mean DOCX, 5.0ms mean XLSX, 0.7ms mean PPTX; up to 100× faster than python-docx / openpyxl / python-pptx
• Reliable — 100% pass rate on valid Office files (6,062-file corpus); zero failures on legitimate documents
• Complete — 6 formats: DOCX, XLSX, PPTX + legacy DOC, XLS, PPT
• Permissive — MIT / Apache-2.0, no AGPL or GPL restrictions
• No node-gyp — Ships pre-built native libraries; no C++ build toolchain required
• Full TypeScript support — Type definitions ship in the package

Performance

Benchmarked on 6,062 files from 11 independent public test suites. Single-thread, release build, warm disk cache.

| Library | Format | Mean | Pass Rate | License | |---------|--------|------|-----------|---------| | office_oxide | DOCX | 0.8ms | 98.9% | MIT | | python-docx | DOCX | 11.8ms | 95.1% | MIT | | office_oxide | XLSX | 5.0ms | 97.8% | MIT | | openpyxl | XLSX | 94.5ms | 96.2% | MIT | | office_oxide | PPTX | 0.7ms | 98.4% | MIT | | python-pptx | PPTX | 32.5ms | 86.7% | MIT |

Installation

npm install office-oxide

The native shared library is resolved (in order):

1. OFFICE_OXIDE_LIB environment variable (absolute path).
2. prebuilds/<platform>-<arch>/liboffice_oxide.{so|dylib|dll} inside the npm package.
3. The system library search path.

| Platform | x64 | ARM64 | |---|---|---| | Linux (glibc) | Yes | Yes | | macOS | Yes | Yes (Apple Silicon) | | Windows | Yes | Yes |

Requires Node.js 18 or newer. TypeScript definitions ship in the package.

Editing

import { EditableDocument } from 'office-oxide';

using ed = EditableDocument.open('template.docx');
ed.replaceText('{{NAME}}', 'Alice');
ed.save('out.docx');

Spreadsheet cells

using ed = EditableDocument.open('report.xlsx');
ed.setCell(0, 'A1', 'Revenue');
ed.setCell(0, 'B1', 12345.67);
ed.setCell(0, 'C1', true);
ed.save('report.edited.xlsx');

One-shot helpers

import { extractText, toMarkdown, toHtml } from 'office-oxide';

console.log(extractText('doc.docx'));
console.log(toMarkdown('deck.pptx'));
console.log(toHtml('data.xlsx'));

API

TypeScript definitions ship with the package (office-oxide/lib/index.d.ts).

| Export | Description | | --- | --- | | Document.open(path) / fromBytes(data, format) | Parse a read-only document. | | Document#format | "docx" \| "xlsx" \| … | | Document#plainText() / toMarkdown() / toHtml() / toIr() | Extraction methods. | | Document#saveAs(path) | Save/convert to a different format. | | EditableDocument.open(path) | Open DOCX/XLSX/PPTX for editing. | | EditableDocument#replaceText(find, replace) | In-place replace. Returns count. | | EditableDocument#setCell(sheet, ref, value) | Write an XLSX cell. | | EditableDocument#save(path) | Persist to disk. | | version() / detectFormat(path) | Library info. | | extractText(path) / toMarkdown(path) / toHtml(path) | One-shot helpers. |

Other languages

office_oxide ships the same Rust core through six bindings:

• Rust — cargo add office_oxide — see docs.rs/office_oxide
• Python — pip install office-oxide — see python/README.md
• Go — go get github.com/yfedoseev/office_oxide/go — see go/README.md
• C# / .NET — dotnet add package OfficeOxide — see csharp/OfficeOxide/README.md
• WASM — npm install office-oxide-wasm — see wasm-pkg/README.md

Why I built this

I needed a library that could read all six Office formats at once — not six separate packages — and I needed it without pulling in a JVM, a Python runtime, or a GPL-licensed dependency. The same Rust binary powers Python via PyO3, Node.js via koffi, Go via cgo, C# via P/Invoke, and the browser via WASM — one fix lands everywhere.

If something's broken or missing, open an issue.

— Yury

License

MIT OR Apache-2.0

Node.js + Rust core | MIT / Apache-2.0 | 100% pass rate on valid Office files (6,062-file corpus) | Up to 100× faster than alternatives | 6 formats