Embedding excel into a gui, for a python program - python

I'm writing a python(3) program that will run on windows only. The program should have a GUI that contains, in part of its window, an embedded excel workbook (and not just its data). Is there a way of doing so with wxPython/PyQt/other?
If not, I found a way of doing that in c#, so I thought of writing the GUI in c# and connect it to python with COM. Can I use IronPython to make a simpler connection? What are the pros and cons of using COM vs using IronPython?
Thanks in advance

One way would be to embed a web browser (QWebView) into the gui and then point it to your Excel Services. The primary issue here, and there are quite a few, is that you'll still need to use something like xlwt to manipulate the data. Unless you have a complex workbook (with macros etc) it might actually be easier to just do something like this using xlwt and xlrd:
value_1 = str(sheet.cell_value(sel,4))
self.lineEdit.setText(value_1)
You can use labels to add column and row names, lineEdits for values, and tabs for sheets. With a little ctrl+v action (or perhaps a "for I in foo") this wouldn't take as long as you might think.

Related

Write data with Python into existing excel file keeping it intact as much as possible

We have a rather complicated Excel based VBA Tool that shall be replaced by a proper Database and Python based application step by step.
There will be time of the transition between were the not yet completely ready Python tool and the already existing VBA solution will coexist.
To allow interoperability the Python tool must be able to export the database values into the Excel VBA Tool keeping it intact. Meaning that not only all VBA codes have to work as expected but also Shapes, Special Formats etc, Checkboxes etc. have to work after the export.
Currently a simple:
from openpyxl import load_workbook
wb = load_workbook(r'Tool.xlsm', keep_vba=True)
# Write some data i.e. (not required to destroy the file)
wb["SomeSheet!SomeCell"] = "SomeValue"
wb.save(r"Tool_filled.xlsm")
will destroy the file, i.e. shapes won't work, checkboxes neither. (The resulting file is only 5 MB from originally 8 MB, showing that something went quite wrong).
Is there a way to only modify only the data of an ExcelSheet keeping everything else intact/untouched?
As far I know an Excel Sheet are only zipped .xml files. So it should be possible to edit only the related sheets? Correct?
Is there a more comfortable way as writing everything from scratch to only modify the data of an existing Excel file?
Note: The solution has to work in Linux, so simple remote Excel calls are not an option.

Automating excel reporting and graphs - Python xlsxWriter/xlswings or Ruby axlsx/win32ole

I want to create a program, which automates excel reporting including various graphs in colours. The program needs to be able to read an excel dataset. Based on this dataset, the program then has to create report pages and graphs and then export to an excel file as well as pdf file.
I have done some research and it seems this is possible using python with pandas - xlsxWriter or xlswings as well as Ruby gems - axlsx or win32ole.
Which is the user-friendlier and easy to learn alternative? What are the advantages and disadvantages? Are there other options I should consider (I would like to avoid VBA - as this is how the reports are currently produced)?
Any responses and comments are appreciated. Thank you!
If you already have VBA that works for your project, then translating it to Ruby + WIN32OLE is probably your quickest path to working code. Anything you can do in VBA is doable in Ruby (if you find something you can't do, post here to ask for help).
I prefer working with Excel via OLE since I know the file produced by Excel will work anywhere I open it. I haven't used axlsx but I'm sure it's a fine project; I just wouldn't trust that it would produce working Excel files every time.

How to draw a chart with excel using python?

Hi I intend to draw a chart with data in an xlsx file.
In order to keep the style, I HAVE TO draw it within excel.
I found a package named win32com, which can give a support to manipulate excel file with python on win32 platform, but I don't know where is the doc.....
Another similar question is how to change the style of cells, such as font, back-color ?
So maybe all I wanna know is the doc, you know how to fish is more useful than fishes.... and an example is better.
Check this lib, almost native excel graph can be generated here.
xlsxwriter line chart example
The only catch here is that you can't update the already existing sheet, means you can modify the sheet, with this lib you can create all most all the charts.
Documentation for win32com is next to non-existent as far I know. However, I use the following method to understand the commands.
MS-Excel
In Excel, record a macro of whatever action you intend to, say plotting a chart. Then go to the Macro menu and use View Macro to get the underlying commands. More often than not, the commands used would guide you to the corresponding commands in python that you need to use.
Pythonwin
You can use pythonwin to browse the underlying win32com defined objects (in your case Microsoft Excel Objects). In pythonwin (which can be found at \Lib\site-packages\pythonwin\ in your python installation), go to Tools -> COM Makepy Utility, select your required Library (in this case, Microsoft Excel 14.0 Object Library) and press Ok. Then when the process is complete, go to Tools -> COM Browser and open the required library under Registered Libraries. Note the ID no. as this would correspond to the source file. You can browse the various components of the library in the COM Browser.
Source
Go to \Lib\site-packages\win32com\ in your python installation folder. Run makepy.py and choose the required library. After this, the source file of the library can be found at \Lib\site-packages\win32com\gen_py . It is one of those files with the wacky name. The name corresponds to that found in Pythonwin. Open the file, and search for the commands you saw in the Excel Macro. (#2 and #3 maybe redundant, I am not sure)
AFAIK, win32com is an interface to Microsoft's COM technology, so you'd have to look there for an explanation of what objects and methods are available for the different COM-enabled applications. Your task will probably be easier if you don't start with an empty spreadsheet and try to create everything using win32com from scratch, but to create a template in Excel which only needs the actual data filled in. Actualy, since Excel can use ODBC data sources, maybe a database is an even better interface?
import win32com.client as w32
oe = w32.Dispatch("Excel.Application")
ow = oe.Workbooks.Add()
osh = ow.Sheets(1)
osh.Select()
osh.Activate()
osh.Cells(1,1).Font.Bold = True # set A1 to bold
osh.Range("A1").Interior.Color = RGB(255,0,0) # set to red background color

Excel Python API

Does anyone know of a way of accessing MS Excel from Python? Specifically I am looking to create new sheets and fill them with data, including formulae.
Preferably I would like to do this on Linux if possible, but can do it from in a VM if there is no other way.
xlwt and xlrd can read and write Excel files, without using Excel itself:
http://www.python-excel.org/
Long time after the original question, but last answer pushed it top of feed again. Others might benefit from my experience using python and excel.
I am using excel and python quite bit. Instead of using the xlrd, xlwt modules directly, I normally use pandas. I think pandas uses these modules as imports, but i find it much easier using the pandas provided framework to create and read the spreadsheets. Pandas's Dataframe structure is very "spreadsheet-like" and makes life a lot easier in my opinion.
The other option that I use (not in direct answer to your problem) is DataNitro. It allows you to use python directly within excel. Different use case, but you would use it where you would normally have to write VBA code in Excel.
there is Python library to read/write Excel 2007 xlsx/xlsm files http://pythonhosted.org/openpyxl/
I wrote python class that allows working with Excel via COM interface in Windows http://sourceforge.net/projects/excelcomforpython/
The class uses win32com to interact with Excel. You can use class directly or use it as example. A lot of options implemented like array formulas, conditional formatting, charts etc.
It's surely possible through the Excel object model via COM: just use win32com modules for Python. Can't remember more but I once controlled the Media Player through COM from Python. It was piece of cake.
Its actually very simple. You can actually run anything from any program. Just see a way to reach command prompt from that program. In case of Excel, create a user defined function by pressing Alt+F11 and paste the following code.
Function call_cmd()
Shell "CMD /C Notepad", vbNormalFocus
End Function
Now press ctrl+s and go back to Excel, select a cell and run the function =call_cmd(). Here I ran Notepad. In the same way, you can see where python.exe is installed and run it. If you want to pass any inputs to python, then save the cells as file in local directory as csv file and read them in python using os.system().

Importing Excel sheets, including formulae, into Django

I have an Excel spreadsheet with calculations I would like to use in a Django web application. I do not need to present the spreadsheet as it appears in Excel. I only want to use the formulae embedded in it. What is the best way to do this?
You can control Excel with Python via COM. See this thread: Driving Excel from Python in Windows
It might be a challenge to get this to work reliably as part of a Django app.
In addition to the COM solution, xlrd is cross-platform. That might be more suitable, since I believe Linux is still the most common deployment environment for django. It's also a lighter-weight solution than pyUno.
I think the only thing you can do is use some python/excel mechanism (the only one I could find was this: http://www.python-excel.org/; the tutorial makes me think it might be doable) to read and write from an excel spreadsheet.
You would write to certain cells that would be used by the spreadsheet formulas and then read the results from the formulas from other cells.
Django per-se has nothing to help you with this.
I'll retag your question to include python so that, maybe, someone with Python-excel experience can comment...
You need to use Excel to calculate the results? I mean, maybe you could run the Excel sheet from OpenOffice and use a pyUNO macro, which is somehow "native" python.
A different approach will be to create a macro to generate some more friendly code to python, if you want Excel to perform the calculation is easy you end up with a very slow process.

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