code: package com.hrLDA.doc;
  
  import java.io.File;
  import java.io.FileInputStream;
  import java.io.IOException;
  
  import org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFRow;
  import org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFSheet;
  import org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFWorkbook;
  import org.apache.poi.poifs.filesystem.POIFSFileSystem;
  
  
  public class StripXLSContent extends Document{
  	public StripXLSContent(){}
  
      
      /**
       * 
       * @param .xls file
       * @return text content
       * @throws IOException
       */     
      public StripXLSContent readContent(File file){
      	
      	try{
      			StringBuffer stringBuffer = new StringBuffer();
      			FileInputStream is=new FileInputStream(file);
      	        HSSFWorkbook wbHssfWorkbook=new HSSFWorkbook(new POIFSFileSystem(is));
      	        //open excel
      	        HSSFSheet sheet=wbHssfWorkbook.getSheetAt(0);
  
      	        HSSFRow row=null;
      	        String cell;
      	        
      	        // fetch data from each row
      	        for (int i = 0; i <=sheet.getLastRowNum(); i++) {
      	            row =sheet.getRow(i);
      	            // fetch data from each coloum
      	            for (int j = 0; j <= row.getLastCellNum(); j++) {
      	            	if (row.getCell(j) != null){
                      		cell = row.getCell(j).toString();
                      		// append the text when it contains English letters
                      		if (cell.matches("[\\p{L}_\\s]+") && !cell.matches("\\s+")){
                                  stringBuffer.append(cell+"\n");               			
                      		}
      	            	}
  
      	            }// end of for (int j = 0; j <= row.getLastCellNum(); j++) {
      	        }// end of for (int i = 0; i <=sheet.getLastRowNum(); i++) {
  
          if (!stringBuffer.toString().matches("")){
              this.setCont(stringBuffer.toString());
              return this;
          }else return null;
  
      	} catch (Exception e) {
  			return null;
  	}
      
  } 	
      
  	public static void main(String[] args) {
  		Document stripXLSContent = new StripXLSContent();
  		File file = new File ("/Users/xiaofengzhu/Documents/Intel/Materials/wikippts/Wiki0/testXls.xls");
  		stripXLSContent.readContent(file);
  		System.out.println(stripXLSContent.getCont());
  
  	}
  
  }
  