jx:each

jx:each is the workhorse command. It loops over a collection and repeats its template area for each item — like a for loop, but in your spreadsheet.

Syntax

jx:each(items="employees" var="e" lastCell="C1")

Attributes

Attribute	Description	Default	Required
items	Expression for the collection to iterate	—	Yes
var	Loop variable name	—	Yes
lastCell	Bottom-right cell of the repeating area	—	Yes
varIndex	Variable name for the 0-based index	—	No
direction	DOWN or RIGHT	DOWN	No
select	Filter expression (must return bool)	—	No
orderBy	Sort spec: "e.Name ASC, e.Age DESC"	—	No
groupBy	Property to group by	—	No
groupOrder	Group sort: ASC or DESC	ASC	No
multisheet	Variable with sheet names (one sheet per item)	—	No

Basic loop

The simplest and most common use case — repeat a row for each item:

Template:

Output:

The comment on the top-left cell:

jx:area(lastCell="C2")
jx:each(items="employees" var="e" lastCell="C2")

Each employee produces one row. The header stays, the data row repeats, all formatting carries over.

Iteration index

Need a row number? Use varIndex:

jx:each(items="employees" var="e" varIndex="i" lastCell="D1")

Template:

Output:

The index i is 0-based (0, 1, 2, …).

Expand RIGHT instead of DOWN

By default, rows expand downward. Set direction="RIGHT" to expand across columns instead:

jx:each(items="months" var="m" direction="RIGHT" lastCell="A2")

Template:

Output:

Great for time series, calendar layouts, or cross-tab reports.

Filtering with select

Only include items that match a condition:

jx:each(items="employees" var="e" select="e.payment > 2000" lastCell="C1")

Template:

Output:

The select expression must return a boolean. Only items where it evaluates to true appear in the output.

Sorting with orderBy

Sort items before looping:

jx:each(items="employees" var="e" orderBy="e.name ASC" lastCell="C1")

Template:

Output:

Multiple sort keys:

jx:each(items="employees" var="e" orderBy="e.department ASC, e.name DESC" lastCell="C1")

Grouping with groupBy

Group items by a property. Each group becomes a GroupData object with Item (the key) and Items (the group members):

jx:each(items="employees" var="g" groupBy="department" groupOrder="ASC" lastCell="C5")

Template:

Output:

Inside the loop, g.Item is the group key (e.g., "Engineering") and g.Items is the slice of items in that group. Nest another jx:each inside to iterate over g.Items.

Multisheet mode

Generate one worksheet per item using multisheet:

jx:each(items="departments" var="dept" multisheet="sheetNames" lastCell="C5")

Template (single sheet serves as the template for all):

Output (one sheet per department):

The sheetNames variable must be a []string in your data:

data := map[string]any{
    "departments": departments,
    "sheetNames":  []string{"Engineering", "Marketing", "Sales"},
}

The template sheet is copied for each item, then removed.

Nested loops

Place an inner jx:each inside an outer one. The inner command’s area must be strictly within the outer:

Cell A1 comment:
  jx:area(lastCell="C5")
  jx:each(items="departments" var="dept" lastCell="C5")

Cell A2 comment:
  jx:each(items="dept.Employees" var="e" lastCell="C2")

This creates a department header followed by employee rows for each department. XLFill detects the nesting automatically from the cell positions.

Try it

Download the runnable examples from examples/xlfill-test:

Feature	Template	Output
Basic loop	t01.xlsx	01_basic_each.xlsx
Loop index (varIndex)	t02.xlsx	02_varindex.xlsx
Expand RIGHT	t03.xlsx	03_direction_right.xlsx
Filter (select)	t04.xlsx	04_select.xlsx
Sort (orderBy)	t05.xlsx	05_orderby.xlsx
Group (groupBy)	t06.xlsx	06_groupby.xlsx
Nested loops	t13.xlsx	13_nested_each.xlsx
Multi-sheet	t14.xlsx	14_multisheet.xlsx

See the full code snippets for each example.

Next command

Sometimes you need to conditionally show or hide part of a template:

jx:if →