Is there a way to write something into an XLS file with python while keeping the initial format of this XLS file unchanged (such as font size, cell background color, etc)Thanks!
Maybe have a look at xlrd, xlwt, xlutils:
http://www.python-excel.org/
I have found it pretty useful in the past.
If you can go for XML serializations of Office documents. Also have a look at ... http://www.python-excel.org/
You could also use pywin32 if you are using Windows
If the available tools like xlrd, xlwt, and xlutils don't work, you may have to fall back to programmatically editing the file with Excel via COM. Of course, you'll need a copy of Excel, have to work from Windows, and it will be slower than other approaches.
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Let me try to improve this question, as it is still valid for me.
I have been using Openpyxl to read Excel files for a while. Now I need to extend the capability of my script to handle "legacy" Excel files that are not supported by Openpyxl. For this I use xlrd and xlutils.
On issue I have yet to solve is how to get the modified date of an .xls file in the case where I don't have the path. Using Openpyxl, I can get this as Workbook.properties.modified, as a datetime object. With xlrd I am struggling. A workaround would be to figure out the path to the file (which may be input to my function as a file like object) and to use os.path.getmtime, but I am not sure if that is equivalent.
Any help is appreciated!
I just came across your post while searching for a solution myself. Seems like
wb = xlrd.open_workbook(filename=fn)
wb.props.get('modified')
does the job.
xlrd==1.2.0
What I need to know is, can I get Python to read a spreadsheet (preferably Microsoft Excel), then parse the information and input it into an equation?
It's for a horse-racing program, where the information for several horses will be in one excel spreadsheet, in different rows or columns. I need to know if I can run a calculation for each of those horses separately and then calculate a score for the given horse.
My suggestion is:
Save the Excel file as a csv comma separated value file, which is a plain text format and much easier to work with.
Use Python's built-in csv module to work with the data in csv format.
You can work with Excel files directly in Python (Excel 2003 format supported via the third party modules xlwt, xlrd) but this is much harder than working with CSV.
OpenPyXL ("A Python library to read/write Excel 2007 xlsx/xlsm files") has a very nice and Pythonic API.
Use xlrd package. It's on PyPI, so you can just easy_install xlrd
You can export the spreadsheet as a .csv and read it in as a text file, then process it. I have a niggling feeling there might even a CSV parsing python library.
AFAIK there isn't a .xls parser, although I might be wrong.
EDIT: I was wrong: http://www.python-excel.org/
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().
I am using Python in a Linux (Ubuntu) environment.
How do I go about reading the comment that is stored in cell A5 in spreadsheet MyFile.xls (in case it matters, this file in in Excel 2003 format)?
I was going to say that it's too bad that xlrd doesn't handle comments, but then I stumbled upon this What's the best way to extract Excel cell comments using Perl or Ruby?.
Key passage:
The Python xlrd library will parse
cell comments (if you turn on
xlrd.sheet.OBJ_MSO_DEBUG, you'll see
them), but it doesn't expose them from
the API. You could either parse the
dump or hack on it a bit so you can
get to them programmatically.
You can read Notes by using sheet.cell_note_map easy.
How do I load data from an Excel sheet into my Django application? I'm using database PosgreSQL as the database.
I want to do this programmatically. A client wants to load two different lists onto the website weekly and they don't want to do it in the admin section, they just want the lists loaded from an Excel sheet. Please help because I'm kind of new here.
Have a look at the xlrd package, which allows you to read Excel files in Python. Once you've read the data you can do whatever you want with it, including saving it to the database.
For a basic usage example, look at http://scienceoss.com/read-excel-files-from-python/
Use django-batchimport http://code.google.com/p/django-batchimport/ It provides a very simple way to upload data in Excel sheets to your Django models. I have used it in a couple of projects. It can be integrated very easily into your existing Django project.
Read the documentation on the project page to know how to use it.
It is built on XLRD.
Have a look at the presentation "Excel & Python" that Chris Withers gave at PyCon US:
"This lightning talk explains that you don't need to use COM or be on Windows to read and write native Excel files."
http://www.simplistix.co.uk/presentations/python_excel_09/excel-lightning.pdf
Programatically or manually? If manualy then just save the excel as a CSV (with csv or txt extension) and import into Postgresql using
copy the_data from '/path/to/csv/MYFILE.txt' DELIMITERS ',' CSV;
As I remember of this.
The best way is to save this sheet as plain text ( CSV or something )
And then load with some custom SQL script.
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.3/static/populate.html
Or have a look at SQLAlchemy if you're going to write some kind of script to help you with that.(http://www.sqlalchemy.org/)
If you want to use COM to interface excel (i.e. you are running on a Windows machine), see "Migrating Excel data to SQLite" - http://www.saltycrane.com/blog/2007/11/migrating-excel-to-sqlite-using-python/
I built django-batchimport on top of xlrd which is AMAZING. The only issues I had were with getting data into Django. Had nothing to do with any limitations of xlrd. It rocks. John's work is incredible.
Note that I've actually done some update work to django-batchimport and just released. Take a look: http://code.google.com/p/django-batchimport/
Just started using XLRD and it looks very easy and simple to use.
Beware that it does not support Excel 2007 yet, so keep in mind to save your excel at 2003 format.