Exporting excel to xml spreadsheet with blank cells

Question

I am exporting an excel workbook into xml spreadsheet. The excel has lets say 10 columns and 10 rows. Some of the cells are empty(i.e with no value).

When i save the file into xml spreadsheet and review the row that has blank cell in it, it has only cells: the cell with the empty value is not there and the xml show that the cell before the blank, and the cell after the blank are one after another (the empty cell just doesn't exists).

Here is a sample of the xml:

<Cell ss:StyleID="s36"><Data ss:Type="Number">cell1</Data><NamedCell
  ss:Name="Print_Area"/></Cell>
<Cell><Data ss:Type="String">cell2</Data><NamedCell ss:Name="Print_Area"/></Cell>
<Cell><Data ss:Type="String">cell4</Data><NamedCell
  ss:Name="Print_Area"/></Cell>

The missing cell is cell3

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Is there a way to ask excel not to save space? The recreation is not that easy as it seems using xslt?

Answer 1

If the cell is empty this seems a reasonable optimization to save space - why should it not be missing.

You have enough information to recreate the original spreadsheet