If you are working with X-ray Diffraction (XRD), you have likely faced this scenario: you have a pristine dataset in an Excel spreadsheet, but your analysis software (like HighScore Plus, Jade, or Diffrac.Eva) refuses to open it. The industry standard for XRD data is the .xrdml format, a specific type of XML file that contains not just your intensities, but vital metadata about the scan parameters.

Simply copying and pasting data isn't enough. To ensure high-quality conversion that preserves your data integrity and makes it readable by analysis software, you need a structured approach.

In this guide, we will walk through the best methods to convert Excel data to XRDML format without losing critical information.

You might ask: "Why convert to XRDML at all? Why not keep it as Excel?"

Because modern XRD analysis software (GSAS-II, TOPAS, Profex) relies on standardized metadata.

For publications and collaborators, XRDML is the archival standard. If you send an Excel file, you are sending data. If you send an XRDML file, you are sending an experiment.

"angle": "2theta", "intensity": "counts", "dspacing": "d", "sampleId": "sample/name", "timestamp": "measurement/dateTime"