diff --git a/R/writeODS.R b/R/writeODS.R
index c4c3155..a88f8e6 100644
--- a/R/writeODS.R
+++ b/R/writeODS.R
@@ -37,12 +37,11 @@
 }
 
 .cell_out <- function(type, value, con) {
-    escaped_value <- .escape_xml(value)
     .write_as_utf8(stringi::stri_join("<table:table-cell office:value-type=\"", type, sep = ""), con)
     if (type != "string") {
-        .write_as_utf8(stringi::stri_join("\" office:value=\"", escaped_value, sep = ""), con)
+        .write_as_utf8(stringi::stri_join("\" office:value=\"", value, sep = ""), con)
     }
-    .write_as_utf8(stringi::stri_join("\" table:style-name=\"ce1\"><text:p>", escaped_value,
+    .write_as_utf8(stringi::stri_join("\" table:style-name=\"ce1\"><text:p>", value,
                                       "</text:p></table:table-cell>",
                                       sep = ""), con)
 }
@@ -56,6 +55,13 @@
     sprintf('<table:table table:name="%s" table:style-name="ta1"><table:table-column table:style-name="co1" table:number-columns-repeated="%d" table:default-cell-style-name="ce1"/>', .escape_xml(sheet), cols)
 }
 
+.flatten <- function(x, column_type) {
+    if (column_type == "string") {
+        return(.escape_xml(as.character(x)))
+    }
+    as.character(x)
+}
+
 .write_sheet_con <- function(x, con, sheet = "Sheet1", row_names = FALSE, col_names = FALSE, na_as_string = FALSE, padding = FALSE) {
     cmax <- force(if(ncol(x) > 1024) { 16384 } else { 1024 })
     types <- unlist(lapply(x, function(x) class(x)[1]))
@@ -63,12 +69,12 @@
     colj <- seq_len(NCOL(x))
     cols <- ncol(x)
     if (row_names) {
-        rownames_x <- rownames(x)
+        rownames_x <- .escape_xml(rownames(x))
         cols <- cols + 1
     }
     rows <- nrow(x)
     if (col_names) {
-        colnames_x <- colnames(x)
+        colnames_x <- .escape_xml(colnames(x))
         rows <- rows + 1
     }
     if (padding) {
@@ -90,7 +96,7 @@
         }
         .write_as_utf8("</table:table-row>", con)
     }
-    x_list <- lapply(x, as.character)
+    x_list <- mapply(.flatten, x = x, column_type = types, SIMPLIFY = FALSE)
     for (i in seq_len(NROW(x))) {
         ## create a row
         .write_as_utf8("<table:table-row table:style-name=\"ro1\">", con)
diff --git a/benchmark/write_ods.md b/benchmark/write_ods.md
index 2802a22..6be4f05 100644
--- a/benchmark/write_ods.md
+++ b/benchmark/write_ods.md
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 date()
 ```
 
-    [1] "Wed Aug  9 23:32:12 2023"
+    [1] "Sat Aug 12 15:38:13 2023"
 
 ``` r
 devtools::load_all()
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ system.time(write_ods(df1, path = tempfile(fileext = ".ods")))
 ```
 
        user  system elapsed 
-      0.354   0.004   0.362 
+      0.283   0.016   0.298 
 
 Large df
 
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ system.time(write_ods(nycflights13::flights))
 ```
 
        user  system elapsed 
-     94.700   0.592  95.384 
+     77.828   0.621  78.560 
 
 ``` r
 sessionInfo()
@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ sessionInfo()
     [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     
 
     other attached packages:
-    [1] readODS_2.0.0   testthat_3.1.10
+    [1] readODS_2.0.1   testthat_3.1.10
 
     loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
      [1] utf8_1.2.3         xml2_1.3.5         stringi_1.7.12     hms_1.1.3