Working with Excel files

in Python

Chris Withers with help from John Machin

EuroPython 2009, Birmingham

The Tutorial Materials

These can be obtained by CD, USB drive or downloaded from here:
• http://www.simplistix.co.uk/presentations/europython2009excel.zip

The Website
The best place to start when working with Excel files in Python is the website:
• http://www.python-excel.org

© Simplistix Ltd 2009

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Introduction
This tutorial covers the following libraries:
xlrd
• http://pypi.python.org/pypi/xlrd
• reading data and formatting from .xls files
• this tutorial covers version 0.7.1
• API documentation can be found at:
◦ https://secure.simplistix.co.uk/svn/xlrd/trunk/xlrd/doc/xlrd.html
xlwt
• http://pypi.python.org/pypi/xlwt
• writing data and formatting to .xls files
• this tutorial covers version 0.7.2
• incomplete API documentation can be found at:
◦ https://secure.simplistix.co.uk/svn/xlwt/trunk/xlwt/doc/xlwt.html
• fairly complete examples can be found at
◦ https://secure.simplistix.co.uk/svn/xlwt/trunk/xlwt/examples/
xlutils
• http://pypi.python.org/pypi/xlutils
• a collection of utilities using both xlrd and xlwt:
◦ copying data from a source to a target spreadsheet
◦ filtering data from a source to a target spreadsheet
• this tutorial covers version 1.3.0 and above.
• documentation and examples can be found at:
◦ https://secure.simplistix.co.uk/svn/xlutils/trunk/xlutils/docs/

There are still reasons why automating an Excel instance via COM is necessary:
• manipulation of graphs
• rich text cells
• reading formulae in cells
• working with macros and names
• the more esoteric things found in .xls files

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Installation
There are several methods of installation available. While the following examples are for
xlrd, the exact same steps can be used for any of the three libraries.

Install from Source

On Linux:

$ tar xzf xlrd.tgz

$ cd xlrd-0.7.1
$ python setup.py install

NB: Make sure you use the python you intend to use for your project.
On Windows, having used WinZip or similar to unpack xlrd-0.7.1.zip:

C:\> cd xlrd-0.7.1
C:\xlrd-0.7.1> \Python26\python setup.py install

NB: Make sure you use the python you intend to use for your project.

Install using Windows Installer

On Windows, you can download and run the xlrd-0.7.1.win32.exe installer.
Beware that this will only install to Python installations that are in the Windows registry.

Install using EasyInstall

This cross-platform method requires that you already have EasyInstall installed. For more
information on this, please see:
• http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/EasyInstall

easy_install xlrd

© Simplistix Ltd 2009

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Installation using Buildout

Buildout provides a cross-platform method of meeting the python package dependencies of
a project without interfering with the system Python.
Having created a directory called mybuildout, download the following file into it:
• http://svn.zope.org/*checkout*/zc.buildout/trunk/bootstrap/bootstrap.py
Now, create a file in mybuildout called buildout.cfg containing the following:

[buildout]
parts = py
versions = versions

[versions]
xlrd=0.7.1
xlwt=0.7.2
xlutils=1.3.2

[py]
recipe = zc.recipe.egg
eggs =
xlrd
xlwt
xlutils
interpreter = py
buildout.cfg

NB: The versions section is optional

Finally, run the following:

$ python bootstrap.py
$ bin/buildout

These lines:
• initialise the buildout environment
• run the buildout. This should be done each time dependencies change.
Now you can do the following:

$ bin/py your_xlrd_xlwt_xltuils_script.py

Buildout lives at http://pypi.python.org/pypi/zc.buildout

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Reading Excel Files

All the examples shown below can be found in the xlrd directory of the course material.

Opening Workbooks
Workbooks can be loaded either from a file, an mmap.mmap object or from a string:

from mmap import mmap,ACCESS_READ

from xlrd import open_workbook

print open_workbook('simple.xls')

with open('simple.xls','rb') as f:
print open_workbook(
file_contents=mmap(f.fileno(),0,access=ACCESS_READ)
)

aString = open('simple.xls','rb').read()
print open_workbook(file_contents=aString)
open.py

Navigating a Workbook
Here is a simple example of workbook navigation:

from xlrd import open_workbook

wb = open_workbook('simple.xls')

for s in wb.sheets():
print 'Sheet:',s.name
for row in range(s.nrows):
values = []
for col in range(s.ncols):
values.append(s.cell(row,col).value)
print ','.join(values)
print
simple.py

The next few sections will cover the navigation of workbooks in more detail.

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Introspecting a Book
The xlrd.Book object returned by open_workbook contains all information to do with
the workbook and can be used to retrieve individual sheets within the workbook.
The nsheets attribute is an integer containing the number of sheets in the workbook.
This attribute, in combination with the sheet_by_index method, is the most common
way of retrieving individual sheets.
The sheet_names method returns a list of unicodes containing the names of all sheets in
the workbook. Individual sheets can be retrieved using these names by way of the
sheet_by_name function.
The results of the sheets method can be iterated over to retrieve each of the sheets in the
workbook.
The following example demonstrates these methods and attributes:

from xlrd import open_workbook

book = open_workbook('simple.xls')

print book.nsheets

for sheet_index in range(book.nsheets):

print book.sheet_by_index(sheet_index)

print book.sheet_names()
for sheet_name in book.sheet_names():
print book.sheet_by_name(sheet_name)

for sheet in book.sheets():

print sheet
introspect_book.py

xlrd.Book objects have other attributes relating to the content of the workbook that are
only rarely useful:
• codepage
• countries
• user_name
If you think you may need to use these attributes, please see the xlrd documentation.

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Introspecting a Sheet
The xlrd.sheet.Sheet objects returned by any of the methods described above contain
all the information to do with a worksheet and its contents.
The name attribute is a unicode representing the name of the worksheet.
The nrows and ncols attributes contain the number of rows and the number of columns,
respectively, in the worksheet.
The following example shows how these can be used to iterate over and display the
contents of one worksheet:

from xlrd import open_workbook,cellname

book = open_workbook('odd.xls')
sheet = book.sheet_by_index(0)

print sheet.name

print sheet.nrows
print sheet.ncols

for row_index in range(sheet.nrows):

for col_index in range(sheet.ncols):
print cellname(row_index,col_index),'-',
print sheet.cell(row_index,col_index).value
introspect_sheet.py

xlrd.sheet.Sheet objects have other attributes relating to the content of the worksheet
that are only rarely useful:
• col_label_ranges
• row_label_ranges
• visibility
If you think you may need to use these attributes, please see the xlrd documentation.

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Getting a particular Cell

As already seen in previous examples, the cell method of a Sheet object can be used to
return the contents of a particular cell.
The cell method returns an xlrd.sheet.Cell object. These objects have very few
attributes, of which value contains the actual value of the cell and ctype contains the
type of the cell.
In addition, Sheet objects have two methods for returning these two types of data. The
cell_value method returns the value for a particular cell, while the cell_type method
returns the type of a particular cell. These methods can be quicker to execute than
retrieving the Cell object.
Cell types are covered in more detail later. The following example shows the methods,
attributes and classes in action:

from xlrd import open_workbook,XL_CELL_TEXT

book = open_workbook('odd.xls')
sheet = book.sheet_by_index(1)

cell = sheet.cell(0,0)
print cell
print cell.value
print cell.ctype==XL_CELL_TEXT

for i in range(sheet.ncols):
print sheet.cell_type(1,i),sheet.cell_value(1,i)
cell_access.py

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Iterating over the contents of a Sheet

We've already seen how to iterate over the contents of a worksheet and retrieve the
resulting individual cells. However, there are methods to retrieve groups of cells more
easily. There are a symmetrical set of methods that retrieve groups of cell information
either by row or by column.
The row and col methods return all the Cell objects for a whole row or column,
respectively.
The row_slice and col_slice methods return a list of Cell objects in a row or
column, respectively, bounded by and start index and an optional end index.
The row_types and col_types methods return a list of integers representing the cell
types in a row or column, respectively, bounded by and start index and an optional end
index.
The row_values and col_values methods return a list of objects representing the cell
values in a row or column, respectively, bounded by a start index and an optional end
index.
The following examples demonstrates all of the sheet iteration methods:

from xlrd import open_workbook

book = open_workbook('odd.xls')
sheet0 = book.sheet_by_index(0)
sheet1 = book.sheet_by_index(1)

print sheet0.row(0)
print sheet0.col(0)
print
print sheet0.row_slice(0,1)
print sheet0.row_slice(0,1,2)
print sheet0.row_values(0,1)
print sheet0.row_values(0,1,2)
print sheet0.row_types(0,1)
print sheet0.row_types(0,1,2)
print
print sheet1.col_slice(0,1)
print sheet0.col_slice(0,1,2)
print sheet1.col_values(0,1)
print sheet0.col_values(0,1,2)
print sheet1.col_types(0,1)
print sheet0.col_types(0,1,2)
sheet_iteration.py

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Utility Functions
When navigating around a workbook, it's often useful to be able to convert between row
and column indexes and the Excel cell references that users may be used to seeing. The
following functions are provided to help with this:
The cellname function turns a row and column index into a relative Excel cell reference.
The cellnameabs function turns a row and column index into an absolute Excel cell
reference.
The colname function turns a column index into an Excel column name.
These three functions are demonstrated in the following example:

from xlrd import cellname, cellnameabs, colname

print cellname(0,0),cellname(10,10),cellname(100,100)
print cellnameabs(3,1),cellnameabs(41,59),cellnameabs(265,358)
print colname(0),colname(10),colname(100)
utility.py

Unicode
All text attributes and values produced by xlrd will be either unicode objects or, in rare
cases, ascii strings.
Each piece of text in an Excel file written by Microsoft Excel is encoded into one of the
following:
• Latin1, if it fits
• UTF_16_LE, if it doesn't fit into Latin1
• In older files, by an encoding specified by an MS codepage. These are mapped to
Python encodings by xlrd and still result in unicode objects.
In rare cases, other software has been known to write no codepage or the wrong codepage
into Excel files. In this case, the correct encoding may need to be specified to
open_workbook:

from xlrd import open_workbook

book = open_workbook('dodgy.xls',encoding='cp1252')

Types of Cell
We have already seen the cell type expressed as an integer. This integer corresponds to a
set of constants in xlrd that identify the type of the cell. The full set of possible cell types is
listed in the following sections.

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Text
These are represented by the xlrd.XL_CELL_TEXT constant.
Cells of this type will have values that are unicode objects.
Number
These are represented by the xlrd.XL_CELL_NUMBER constant.
Cells of this type will have values that are float objects.
Date
These are represented by the xlrd.XL_CELL_DATE constant.
NB: Dates don't really exist in Excel files, they are merely Numbers with a particular
number formatting.
xlrd will return xlrd.XL_CELL_DATE as the cell type if the number format string looks
like a date.
The xldate_as_tuple method is provided for turning the float in a Date cell into a
tuple suitable for instantiating various date/time objects. This example shows how to use
it:

from datetime import date,datetime,time

from xlrd import open_workbook,xldate_as_tuple

book = open_workbook('types.xls')
sheet = book.sheet_by_index(0)

date_value =
xldate_as_tuple(sheet.cell(3,2).value,book.datemode)
print datetime(*date_value),date(*date_value[:3])
datetime_value =
xldate_as_tuple(sheet.cell(3,3).value,book.datemode)
print datetime(*datetime_value)
time_value =
xldate_as_tuple(sheet.cell(3,4).value,book.datemode)
print time(*time_value[3:])
print datetime(*time_value)
dates.py

Caveats:
• Excel files have two possible date modes, one for files originally created on Windows
and one for files originally created on an Apple machine. This is expressed as the
datemode attribute of xlrd.Book objects and must be passed to xldate_as_tuple.
• The Excel file format has various problems with dates before 3 Jan 1904 that can
cause date ambiguities that can result in xldate_as_tuple raising an
XLDateError.
• The Excel formula function DATE()can return unexpected dates in certain
circumstances.

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Boolean
These are represented by the xlrd.XL_CELL_BOOLEAN constant.
Cells of this type will have values that are bool objects.
Error
These are represented by the xlrd.XL_CELL_ERROR constant.
Cells of this type will have values that are integers representing specific error codes.
The error_text_from_code function can be used to turn error codes into error
messages:

from xlrd import open_workbook,error_text_from_code

book = open_workbook('types.xls')
sheet = book.sheet_by_index(0)

print error_text_from_code[sheet.cell(5,2).value]
print error_text_from_code[sheet.cell(5,3).value]
errors.py

For a simpler way of sensibly displaying all cell types, see xlutils.display.

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Empty / Blank
Excel files only store cells that either have information in them or have formatting applied
to them. However, xlrd presents sheets as rectangular grids of cells.
Cells where no information is present in the Excel file are represented by the
xlrd.XL_CELL_EMPTY constant. In addition, there is only one “empty cell”, whose value
is an empty string, used by xlrd, so empty cells may be checked using a Python identity
check.
Cells where only formatting information is present in the Excel file are represented by the
xlrd.XL_CELL_BLANK constant and their value will always be an empty string.

from xlrd import open_workbook,empty_cell

print empty_cell.value

book = open_workbook('types.xls')
sheet = book.sheet_by_index(0)
empty = sheet.cell(6,2)
blank = sheet.cell(7,2)
print empty is blank, empty is empty_cell, blank is empty_cell

book = open_workbook('types.xls',formatting_info=True)
sheet = book.sheet_by_index(0)
empty = sheet.cell(6,2)
blank = sheet.cell(7,2)
print empty.ctype,repr(empty.value)
print blank.ctype,repr(blank.value)
emptyblank.py

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The following example brings all of the above cell types together and shows examples of
their use:

from xlrd import open_workbook

def cell_contents(sheet,row_x):
result = []
for col_x in range(2,sheet.ncols):
cell = sheet.cell(row_x,col_x)
result.append((cell.ctype,cell,cell.value))
return result

sheet = open_workbook('types.xls').sheet_by_index(0)

print 'XL_CELL_TEXT',cell_contents(sheet,1)
print 'XL_CELL_NUMBER',cell_contents(sheet,2)
print 'XL_CELL_DATE',cell_contents(sheet,3)
print 'XL_CELL_BOOLEAN',cell_contents(sheet,4)
print 'XL_CELL_ERROR',cell_contents(sheet,5)
print 'XL_CELL_BLANK',cell_contents(sheet,6)
print 'XL_CELL_EMPTY',cell_contents(sheet,7)

print
sheet = open_workbook(
'types.xls',formatting_info=True
).sheet_by_index(0)

print 'XL_CELL_TEXT',cell_contents(sheet,1)
print 'XL_CELL_NUMBER',cell_contents(sheet,2)
print 'XL_CELL_DATE',cell_contents(sheet,3)
print 'XL_CELL_BOOLEAN',cell_contents(sheet,4)
print 'XL_CELL_ERROR',cell_contents(sheet,5)
print 'XL_CELL_BLANK',cell_contents(sheet,6)
print 'XL_CELL_EMPTY',cell_contents(sheet,7)
cell_types.py

Names
These are an infrequently used but powerful way of abstracting commonly used
information found within Excel files.
They have many uses, and xlrd can extract information from many of them. A notable
exception are names that refer to sheet and VBA macros, which are extracted but should be
ignored.
Names are created in Excel by navigating to Insert > Name > Define. If you plan to
use xlrd to extract information from Names, familiarity with the definition and use of
names in your chosen spreadsheet application is a good idea.

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Types
A Name can refer to:
• A constant
◦ CurrentInterestRate = 0.015
◦ NameOfPHB = “Attila T. Hun”
• An absolute (i.e. not relative) cell reference
◦ CurrentInterestRate = Sheet1!$B$4
• Absolute reference to a 1D, 2D, or 3D block of cells
◦ MonthlySalesByRegion = Sheet2:Sheet5!$A$2:$M$100
• A list of absolute references
◦ Print_Titles = [row_header_ref, col_header_ref])
Constants can be extracted.
The coordinates of an absolute reference can be extracted so that you can then extract the
corresponding data from the relevant sheet(s).
A relative reference is useful only if you have external knowledge of what cells can be used
as the origin. Many formulas found in Excel files include function calls and multiple
references and are not useful, and can be too hard to evaluate.
A full calculation engine is not included in xlrd.
Scope
The scope of a Name can be global, or it may be specific to a particular sheet. A Name's
identifier may be re-used in different scopes. When there are multiple Names with the
same identifier, the most appropriate one is used based on scope. A good example of this is
the built-in name Print_Area; each worksheet may have one of these.
Examples:
name=rate, scope=Sheet1, formula=0.015
name=rate, scope=Sheet2, formula=0.023
name=rate, scope=global, formula=0.040
A cell formula (1+rate)^20 is equivalent to 1.015^20 if it appears in Sheet1 but
equivalent to 1.023^20 if it appears in Sheet2, and 1.040^20 if it appears in any other
sheet.
Usage
Common reasons for using names include:
• Assigning textual names to values that may occur in many places within a workbook
◦ eg: RATE = 0.015
• Assigning textual names to complex formulae that may be easily mis-copied
◦ eg: SALES_RESULTS = $A$10:$M$999
Here's an example real-world use case: reporting to head office. A company's head office
makes up a template workbook. Each department gets a copy to fill in. The various ranges

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of data to be provided all have defined names. When the files come back, a script is used to
validate that the department hasn't trashed the workbook and the names are used to
extract the data for further processing. Using names decouples any artistic repositioning of
the ranges, by either head office template-designing user or by departmental users who are
filling in the template, from the script which only has to know what the names of the
ranges are.
In the examples directory of the xlrd distribution you will find namesdemo.xls which
has examples of most of the non-macro varieties of defined names. There is also
xlrdnamesAPIdemo.py which shows how to use the name lookup dictionaries, and how
to extract constants and references and the data that references point to.

Formatting
We've already seen that open_workbook has a parameter to load formatting information
from Excel files. When this is done, all the formatting information is available, but the
details of how it is presented are beyond the scope of this tutorial.
If you wish to copy existing formatted data to a new Excel file, see xlutils.copy and
xlutils.filter.
If you do wish to inspect formatting information, you'll need to consult the following
attributes of the following classes:
xlrd.Book
colour_map palette_record
font_list style_name_map
format_list xf_list
format_map
xlrd.sheet.Sheet
cell_xf_index default_row_height_mismatch
rowinfo_map default_row_hidden
colinfo_map defcolwidth
computed_column_width gcw
default_additional_space_above merged_cells
default_additional_space_below standard_width
default_row_height
xlrd.sheet.Cell
xf_index
Other Classes
In addition, the following classes are solely used to represent formatting information:
xlrd.sheet.Rowinfo xlrd.formatting.XF
xlrd.sheet.Colinfo xlrd.formatting.XFAlignment
xlrd.formatting.Font xlrd.formatting.XFBackground
xlrd.formatting.Format xlrd.formatting.XFBorder

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xlrd.formatting.XFProtection

Working with large Excel files

If you're working with particularly large Excel files then there are two features of xlrd that
you should be aware of:
• The on_demand parameter can be passed as True to open_workbook resulting in
worksheets only being loaded into memory when they are requested.
• xlrd.Book objects have an unload_sheet method that will unload worksheet,
specified by either sheet index or sheet name, from memory.
The following example shows how a large workbook could be iterated over when only
sheets matching a certain pattern need to be inspected, and where only one of those sheets
ends up in memory at any one time:

from xlrd import open_workbook

book = open_workbook('simple.xls',on_demand=True)

for name in book.sheet_names():

if name.endswith('2'):
sheet = book.sheet_by_name(name)
print sheet.cell_value(0,0)
book.unload_sheet(name)
large_files.py

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Introspecting Excel files with runxlrd.py

The xlrd source distribution includes a runxlrd.py script that is extremely useful for
introspecting Excel files without writing a single line of Python.
You are encouraged to run a variety of the commands it provides over the Excel files
provided in the course materials.
The following gives an overview of what's available from runxlrd, and can be obtained
using python runxlrd.py –-help:
runxlrd.py [options] command [input-file-patterns]

Commands:

2rows Print the contents of first and last row in each sheet
3rows Print the contents of first, second and last row in each sheet
bench Same as "show", but doesn't print -- for profiling
biff_count[1] Print a count of each type of BIFF record in the file
biff_dump[1] Print a dump (char and hex) of the BIFF records in the file
fonts hdr + print a dump of all font objects
hdr Mini-overview of file (no per-sheet information)
hotshot Do a hotshot profile run e.g. ... -f1 hotshot bench bigfile*.xls
labels Dump of sheet.col_label_ranges and ...row... for each sheet
name_dump Dump of each object in book.name_obj_list
names Print brief information for each NAME record
ov Overview of file
profile Like "hotshot", but uses cProfile
show Print the contents of all rows in each sheet
version[0] Print versions of xlrd and Python and exit
xfc Print "XF counts" and cell-type counts -- see code for details

[0] means no file arg

[1] means only one file arg i.e. no glob.glob pattern

Options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-l LOGFILENAME, --logfilename=LOGFILENAME
contains error messages
-v VERBOSITY, --verbosity=VERBOSITY
level of information and diagnostics provided
-p PICKLEABLE, --pickleable=PICKLEABLE
1: ensure Book object is pickleable (default); 0:
don't bother
-m MMAP, --mmap=MMAP 1: use mmap; 0: don't use mmap; -1: accept heuristic
-e ENCODING, --encoding=ENCODING
encoding override
-f FORMATTING, --formatting=FORMATTING
0 (default): no fmt info 1: fmt info (all cells)
-g GC, --gc=GC 0: auto gc enabled; 1: auto gc disabled, manual
collect after each file; 2: no gc
-s ONESHEET, --onesheet=ONESHEET
restrict output to this sheet (name or index)
-u, --unnumbered omit line numbers or offsets in biff_dump

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Writing Excel Files

All the examples shown below can be found in the xlwt directory of the course material.

Creating elements within a Workbook

Workbooks are created with xlwt by instantiating an xlwt.Workbook object,
manipulating it and then calling its save method.
The save method may be passed either a string containing the path to write to or a file-like
object, opened for writing in binary mode, to which the binary Excel file data will be
written.
The following objects can be created within a workbook:
Worksheets
Worksheets are created with the add_sheet method of the Workbook class.
To retrieve an existing sheet from a Workbook, use its get_sheet method. This method
is particularly useful when the Workbook has been instantiated by xlutils.copy.
Rows
Rows are created using the row method of the Worksheet class and contain all of the
cells for a given row.
The row method is also used to retrieve existing rows from a Worksheet.
If a large number of rows have been written to a Worksheet and memory usage is
becoming a problem, the flush_row_data method may be called on the Worksheet.
Once called, any rows flushed cannot be accessed or modified.
It is recommended that flush_row_data is called for every 1000 or so rows of a normal
size that are written to an xlwt.Workbook. If the rows are huge, that number should be
reduced.
Columns
Columns are created using the col method of the Worksheet class and contain display
formatting information for a given column.
The col method is also used to retrieve existing columns from a Worksheet.
Cells
Cells can be written using either the write method of either the Worksheet or Row class.
A more detailed discussion of different ways of writing cells and the different types of cell
that may be written is covered later.

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A Simple Example
The following example shows how all of the above methods can be used to build and save a
simple workbook:

from tempfile import TemporaryFile

from xlwt import Workbook

book = Workbook()
sheet1 = book.add_sheet('Sheet 1')
book.add_sheet('Sheet 2')

sheet1.write(0,0,'A1')
sheet1.write(0,1,'B1')
row1 = sheet1.row(1)
row1.write(0,'A2')
row1.write(1,'B2')
sheet1.col(0).width = 10000

sheet2 = book.get_sheet(1)
sheet2.row(0).write(0,'Sheet 2 A1')
sheet2.row(0).write(1,'Sheet 2 B1')
sheet2.flush_row_data()
sheet2.write(1,0,'Sheet 2 A3')
sheet2.col(0).width = 5000
sheet2.col(0).hidden = True

book.save('simple.xls')
book.save(TemporaryFile())
simple.py

Unicode
The best policy is to pass unicode objects to all xlwt-related method calls.
If you absolutely have to use encoded strings then make sure that the encoding used is
consistent across all calls to any xlwt-related methods.
If encoded strings are used and the encoding is not 'ascii', then any Workbook objects
must be created with the appropriate encoding specified:

from xlwt import Workbook

book = Workbook(encoding='utf-8')

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Writing to Cells
A number of different ways of writing a cell are provided by xlwt along with different
strategies for handling multiple writes to the same cell.
Different ways of writing cells
There are generally three ways to write to a particular cell:
• Worksheet.write(row_index,column_index,value)
◦ This is just syntactic sugar for sheet.row(row_index).write(column_index,value)
◦ It can be useful when you only want to write one cell to a row
• Row.write(column_index,value)
◦ This will write the correct type of cell based on the value passed
◦ Because it figures out what type of cell to write, this method may be slower for
writing large workbooks
• Specialist write methods on the Row class
◦ Each type of cell has a specialist setter method as covered in the “Types of Cell”
section below.
◦ These require you to pass the correct type of Python object but can be faster.
In general, use Worksheet.write for convenience and the specialist write methods if you
require speed for a large volume of data.
Overwriting Cells
The Excel file format does nothing to prevent multiple records for a particular cell
occurring but, if this happens, the results will vary depending on what application is used
to open the file. Excel will display a “File error: data may have been lost”
while OpenOffice.org will show the last record for the cell that occurs in the file.
To help prevent this, xlwt provides two modes of operation:
• Writing to the same cell more than once will result in an exception
This is the default mode.
• Writing to the same cell more than once will replace the record for that cell, and
only one record will be written when the Workbook is saved.

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The following example demonstrates these two options:

from xlwt import Workbook

book = Workbook()
sheet1 = book.add_sheet('Sheet 1',cell_overwrite_ok=True)
sheet1.write(0,0,'original')
sheet = book.get_sheet(0)
sheet.write(0,0,'new')

sheet2 = book.add_sheet('Sheet 2')

sheet2.write(0,0,'original')
sheet2.write(0,0,'new')
overwriting.py

The most common case for needing to overwrite cells is when an existing Excel file has
been loaded into a Workbook instance using xlutils.copy.

Types of Cell
All types of cell supported by the Excel file format can be written:
Text
When passed a unicode or string, the write methods will write a Text cell.
The set_cell_text method of the Row class can also be used to write Text cells.
When passed a string, these methods will first decode the string using the Workbook's
encoding.
Number
When passed a float, int, long, or decimal.Decimal, the write methods will write a
Number cell.
The set_cell_number method of the Row class can also be used to write Number cells.
Date
When passed a datetime.datetime, datetime.date or datetime.time, the write
methods will write a Date cell.
The set_cell_date method of the Row class can also be used to write Date cells.
Note: As mentioned earlier, a date is not really a separate type in Excel; if you don't apply a
date format, it will be treated as a number.
Boolean
When passed a bool, the write methods will write a Boolean cell.
The set_cell_boolean method of the Row class can also be used to write Text cells.

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Error
You shouldn't ever want to write Error cells!
However, if you absolutely must, the set_cell_error method of the Row class can be
used to do so. For convenience, it can be called with either hexadecimal error codes,
expressed as integers, or the error text that Excel would display.
Blank
It is not normally necessary to write blank cells. The one exception to this is if you wish to
apply formatting to a cell that contains nothing.
To do this, either call the write methods with an empty string or None, or use the
set_cell_blank method of the Row class.
If you need to do this for more than one cell in a row, using the set_cell_mulblanks
method will result in a smaller Excel file when the Workbook is saved.

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The following example brings all of the above cell types together and shows examples use
both the generic write method and the specialist methods:

from datetime import date,time,datetime

from decimal import Decimal
from xlwt import Workbook,Style

wb = Workbook()
ws = wb.add_sheet('Type examples')
ws.row(0).write(0,u'\xa3')
ws.row(0).write(1,'Text')
ws.row(1).write(0,3.1415)
ws.row(1).write(1,15)
ws.row(1).write(2,265L)
ws.row(1).write(3,Decimal('3.65'))
ws.row(2).set_cell_number(0,3.1415)
ws.row(2).set_cell_number(1,15)
ws.row(2).set_cell_number(2,265L)
ws.row(2).set_cell_number(3,Decimal('3.65'))
ws.row(3).write(0,date(2009,3,18))
ws.row(3).write(1,datetime(2009,3,18,17,0,1))
ws.row(3).write(2,time(17,1))
ws.row(4).set_cell_date(0,date(2009,3,18))
ws.row(4).set_cell_date(1,datetime(2009,3,18,17,0,1))
ws.row(4).set_cell_date(2,time(17,1))
ws.row(5).write(0,False)
ws.row(5).write(1,True)
ws.row(6).set_cell_boolean(0,False)
ws.row(6).set_cell_boolean(1,True)
ws.row(7).set_cell_error(0,0x17)
ws.row(7).set_cell_error(1,'#NULL!')
ws.row(8).write(
0,'',Style.easyxf('pattern: pattern solid, fore_colour
green;'))
ws.row(8).write(
1,None,Style.easyxf('pattern: pattern solid, fore_colour
blue;'))
ws.row(9).set_cell_blank(
0,Style.easyxf('pattern: pattern solid, fore_colour
yellow;'))
ws.row(10).set_cell_mulblanks(
5,10,Style.easyxf('pattern: pattern solid, fore_colour
red;')
)

wb.save('types.xls')
cell_types.py

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Styles
Most elements of an Excel file can be formatted. For many elements including cells, rows
and columns, this is done by assigning a style, known as an XF record, to that element.
This is done by passing an xlwt.XFStyle instance to the optional last argument to the
various write methods and specialist set_cell_ methods. xlwt.Row and xlwt.Column
instances have set_style methods to which an xlwt.XFStyle instance can be passed.
XFStyle
In xlwt, the XF record is represented by the XFStyle class and its related attribute classes.
The following example shows how to create a red Date cell with Arial text and a black
border:

from datetime import date

from xlwt import Workbook, XFStyle, Borders, Pattern, Font

fnt = Font()
fnt.name = 'Arial'

borders = Borders()
borders.left = Borders.THICK
borders.right = Borders.THICK
borders.top = Borders.THICK
borders.bottom = Borders.THICK

pattern = Pattern()
pattern.pattern = Pattern.SOLID_PATTERN
pattern.pattern_fore_colour = 0x0A

style = XFStyle()
style.num_format_str='YYYY-MM-DD'
style.font = fnt
style.borders = borders
style.pattern = pattern

book = Workbook()
sheet = book.add_sheet('A Date')
sheet.write(1,1,date(2009,3,18),style)

book.save('date.xls')
xfstyle_format.py

This can be quite cumbersome!

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easyxf
Thankfully, xlwt provides the easyxf helper to create XFStyle instances from human
readable text and an optional string containing a number format.
Here is the above example, this time created with easyxf:

from datetime import date

from xlwt import Workbook, easyxf

book = Workbook()
sheet = book.add_sheet('A Date')

sheet.write(1,1,date(2009,3,18),easyxf(
'font: name Arial;'
'borders: left thick, right thick, top thick, bottom
thick;'
'pattern: pattern solid, fore_colour red;',
num_format_str='YYYY-MM-DD'
))

book.save('date.xls')
easyxf_format.py

The human readable text breaks roughly as follows, in pseudo-regular expression syntax:
(<element>:(<attribute> <value>,)+;)+
This means:
• The text contains a semi-colon delimited list of element definitions.
• Each element contains a comma-delimited list of attribute and value pairs.
The following sections describe each of the types of element by providing a table of their
attributes and possible values for those attributes. For explanations of how to express
boolean values and colours, please see the “Types of attribute” section.

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font
bold A boolean value.
The default is False.
charset The character set to use for this font, which can be one of the following:
ansi_latin, sys_default, symbol, apple_roman,
ansi_jap_shift_jis, ansi_kor_hangul, ansi_kor_johab,
ansi_chinese_gbk, ansi_chinese_big5, ansi_greek,
ansi_turkish, ansi_vietnamese, ansi_hebrew,
ansi_arabic, ansi_baltic, ansi_cyrillic, ansi_thai,
ansi_latin_ii, oem_latin_i
The default is sys_default.
colour A colour specifying the colour for the text.
The default is the automatic colour.
escapement This can be one of none, superscript or subscript.
The default is none.
family This should be a string containing the name of the font family to use.
You probably want to use name instead of this attribute and leave this to
its default value.
The default is None.
height The height of the font as expressed by multiplying the point size by 20.
The default is 200, which equates to 10pt.
italic A boolean value.
The default is False.
name This should be a string containing the name of the font family to use.
The default is Arial.
outline A boolean value.
The default is False.
shadow A boolean value.
The default is False.
struck_out A boolean value.
The default is False.
underline A boolean value or one of none, single, single_acc, double or
double_acc.
The default is none.
color_index A synonym for colour
colour_index A synonym for colour
color A synonym for colour

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alignment
direction One of general, lr, or rl.
The default is general.
horizontal One of the following:
general, left, center|centre, right, filled,
justified, center|centre_across_selection,
distributed
The default is general.
indent A indentation amount between 0 and 15.
The default is 0.
rotation An integer rotation in degrees between -90 and +90 or one of stacked
or none.
The default is none.
shrink_to_fit A boolean value.
The default is False.
vertical One of the following:
top, center|centre, bottom, justified, distributed
The default is bottom.
wrap A boolean value.
The default is False.
dire This is a synonym for direction.
horiz This is a synonym for horizontal.
horz This is a synonym for horizontal.
inde This is a synonym for indent.
rota This is a synonym for rotation.
shri This is a synonym for shrink_to_fit.
shrink This is a synonym for shrink_to_fit.
vert This is a synonym for vertical.

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borders
left A type of border line*
right A type of border line*
top A type of border line*
bottom A type of border line*
diag A type of border line*
left_colour A colour.
The default is the automatic colour.
right_colour A colour.
The default is the automatic colour.
top_colour A colour.
The default is the automatic colour.
bottom_colour A colour.
The default is the automatic colour.
diag_colour A colour.
The default is the automatic colour.
need_diag_1 A boolean value.
The default is False.
need_diag_2 A boolean value.
The default is False.
left_color A synonym for left_colour
right_color A synonym for right_colour
top_color A synonym for top_colour
bottom_color A synonym for bottom_colour
diag_color A synonym for diag_colour
*This can be either an integer width between 0 and 13 or one of the following:
no_line, thin, medium, dashed, dotted, thick, double, hair,
medium_dashed, thin_dash_dotted, medium_dash_dotted,
thin_dash_dot_dotted, medium_dash_dot_dotted,
slanted_medium_dash_dotted

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pattern
back_colour A colour.
The default is the automatic colour.
fore_colour A colour.
The default is the automatic colour.
pattern One of the following:
no_fill, none, solid, solid_fill, solid_pattern,
fine_dots, alt_bars, sparse_dots,
thick_horz_bands, thick_vert_bands,
thick_backward_diag, thick_forward_diag,
big_spots, bricks, thin_horz_bands,
thin_vert_bands, thin_backward_diag,
thin_forward_diag, squares, diamonds

The default is none.

fore_color A synonym for fore_colour
back_color A synonym for back_colour
pattern_fore_colour A synonym for fore_colour
pattern_fore_color A synonym for fore_colour
pattern_back_colour A synonym for back_colour
pattern_back_color A synonym for back_colour

protection
The protection features of the Excel file format are only partially implemented in xlwt.
Avoid them unless you plan on finishing their implementation.
cell_locked A boolean value.
The default is True.
formula_hidden A boolean value.
The default is False.
align
A synonym for alignment
border
A synonym for borders
Types of attribute
Boolean values are either True or False, but easyxf allows great flexibility in how you
choose to express those two values:
• True can be expressed by 1, yes, true or on
• False can be expressed by 0, no, false, or off

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Colours in Excel files are a confusing mess. The safest bet to do is just pick from the
following list of colour names that easyxf understands.
The names used are those reported by the Excel 2003 GUI when you are inspecting the
default colour palette.
Warning: There are many differences between this implicit mapping from colour-names to
RGB values and the mapping used in standards such as HTML andCSS.
aqua dark_red_ega light_blue plum
black dark_teal light_green purple_ega
blue dark_yellow light_orange red
blue_gray gold light_turquoise rose
bright_green gray_ega light_yellow sea_green
brown gray25 lime silver_ega
coral gray40 magenta_ega sky_blue
cyan_ega gray50 ocean_blue tan
dark_blue gray80 olive_ega teal
dark_blue_ega green olive_green teal_ega
dark_green ice_blue orange turquoise
dark_green_ega indigo pale_blue violet
dark_purple ivory periwinkle white
dark_red lavender pink yellow

NB: grey can be used instead of gray wherever it occurs above.

Formatting Rows and Columns

It is possible to specify default formatting for rows and columns within a worksheet. This is
done using the set_style method of the Row and Column instances, respectively.
The precedence of styles is as follows:
• the style applied to a cell
• the style applied to a row
• the style applied to a column
It is also possible to hide whole rows and columns by using the hidden attribute of Row
and Column instances.
The width of a Column can be controlled by setting its width attribute to an integer where
1 is 1/256 of the width of the zero character, using the first font that occurs in the Excel file.
Do not be fooled by the height attribute of the Row class, it does nothing. Specify a style
on the row and set its font height attribute instead.

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The following example shows these methods and properties in use along with the style
precedence:

from xlwt import Workbook, easyxf

from xlwt.Utils import rowcol_to_cell

row = easyxf('pattern: pattern solid, fore_colour blue')

col = easyxf('pattern: pattern solid, fore_colour green')
cell = easyxf('pattern: pattern solid, fore_colour red')

book = Workbook()

sheet = book.add_sheet('Precedence')
for i in range(0,10,2):
sheet.row(i).set_style(row)
for i in range(0,10,2):
sheet.col(i).set_style(col)
for i in range(10):
sheet.write(i,i,None,cell)

sheet = book.add_sheet('Hiding')
for rowx in range(10):
for colx in range(10):
sheet.write(rowx,colx,rowcol_to_cell(rowx,colx))
for i in range(0,10,2):
sheet.row(i).hidden = True
sheet.col(i).hidden = True

sheet = book.add_sheet('Row height and Column width')

for i in range(10):
sheet.write(0,i,0)
for i in range(10):
sheet.row(i).set_style(easyxf('font:height '+str(200*i)))
sheet.col(i).width = 256*i

book.save('format_rowscols.xls')
format_rowscols.py

Formatting Sheets and Workbooks

There are many possible settings that can be made on Sheets and Workbooks.
Most of them you will never need or want to touch.
If you think you do, see the “Other Properties” section below.

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Style compression
While its fine to create as many XFStyle and their associated Font instances as you like,
each one written to Workbook will result in an XF record and a Font record. Excel has
fixed limits of around 400 Fonts and 4000 XF records so care needs to be taken when
generating large Excel files.
To help with this, xlwt.Workbook has an optional style_compression parameter
with the following meaning:
• 0 – no compression. This is the default.
• 1 – compress Fonts only. Not very useful.
• 2 – compress Fonts and XF records.
The following example demonstrates these three options:

from xlwt import Workbook, easyxf

style1 = easyxf('font: name Times New Roman')

style2 = easyxf('font: name Times New Roman')
style3 = easyxf('font: name Times New Roman')

def write_cells(book):
sheet = book.add_sheet('Content')
sheet.write(0,0,'A1',style1)
sheet.write(0,1,'B1',style2)
sheet.write(0,2,'C1',style3)

book = Workbook()
write_cells(book)
book.save('3xf3fonts.xls')

book = Workbook(style_compression=1)
write_cells(book)
book.save('3xf1font.xls')

book = Workbook(style_compression=2)
write_cells(book)
book.save('1xf1font.xls')
stylecompression.py

Be aware that doing this compression involves deeply nested comparison of the XFStyle
objects, so may slow down writing of large files where many styles are used.
The recommended best practice is to create all the styles you will need in advance and
leave style_compression at its default value.

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Formulae
Formulae can be written by xlwt by passing an xlwt.Formula instance to either of the
write methods or by using the set_cell_formula method of Row instances, bugs
allowing.
The following are supported:
• all the built-in Excel formula functions
• references to other sheets in the same workbook
• access to all the add-in functions in the Analysis Toolpak (ATP)
• comma or semicolon as the argument separator in function calls
• case-insensitive matching of formula names
The following are not suppoted:
• references to external workbooks
• array aka Ctrl-Shift-Enter aka CSE formulas
• references to defined Names
• using formulas for data validation or conditional formatting
• evaluation of formulae
The following example shows some of these things in action:

from xlwt import Workbook, Formula

book = Workbook()

sheet1 = book.add_sheet('Sheet 1')

sheet1.write(0,0,10)
sheet1.write(0,1,20)
sheet1.write(1,0,Formula('A1/B1'))

sheet2 = book.add_sheet('Sheet 2')

row = sheet2.row(0)
row.write(0,Formula('sum(1,2,3)'))
row.write(1,Formula('SuM(1;2;3)'))
row.write(2,Formula("$A$1+$B$1*SUM('ShEEt 1'!$A$1:$b$2)"))

book.save('formula.xls')
formulae.py

Names
Names cannot currently be written by xlwt.

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 Page 37

Utility methods
The Utils module of xlwt contains several useful utility functions:
col_by_name
This will convert a string containing a column identifier into an integer column index.
cell_to_rowcol
This will convert a string containing an excel cell reference into a four-element tuple
containing:
(row,col,row_abs,col_abs)
row – integer row index of the referenced cell
col – integer column index of the referenced cell
row_abs – boolean indicating whether the row index is absolute (True) or relative (False)
col_abs – boolean indicating whether the column index is absolute (True) or relative
(False)
cell_to_rowcol2
This will convert a string containing an excel cell reference into a two-element tuple
containing:
(row,col)
row – integer row index of the referenced cell
col – integer column index of the referenced cell
rowcol_to_cell
This will covert an integer row and column index into a string excel cell reference, with
either index optionally being absolute.
cellrange_to_rowcol_pair
This will convert a string containing an excel range into a four-element tuple containing:
(row1,col1,row2,col2)
row1 – integer row index of the start of the range
col1 – integer column index of the start of the range
row2 – integer row index of the end of the range
col2 – integer column index of the end of the range
rowcol_pair_to_cellrange
This will covert a pair of integer row and column indexes into a string containing an excel
cell range. Any of the indexes specified can optionally be made to be absolute.
valid_sheet_name
This function takes a single string argument and returns a boolean value indication
whether the sheet name will work without problems (True) or will cause complaints from
Excel (False).

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 Page 38

The following example shows all of these functions in use:

from xlwt import Utils

print 'AA ->',Utils.col_by_name('AA')

print 'A ->',Utils.col_by_name('A')

print 'A1 ->',Utils.cell_to_rowcol('A1')

print '$A$1 ->',Utils.cell_to_rowcol('$A$1')

print 'A1 ->',Utils.cell_to_rowcol2('A1')

print (0,0),'->',Utils.rowcol_to_cell(0,0)
print (0,0,False,True),'->',
print Utils.rowcol_to_cell(0,0,False,True)
print (0,0,True,True),'->',
print Utils.rowcol_to_cell(
row=0,col=0,row_abs=True,col_abs=True
)

print '1:3 ->',Utils.cellrange_to_rowcol_pair('1:3')

print 'B:G ->',Utils.cellrange_to_rowcol_pair('B:G')
print 'A2:B7 ->',Utils.cellrange_to_rowcol_pair('A2:B7')
print 'A1 ->',Utils.cellrange_to_rowcol_pair('A1')

print (0,0,100,100),'->',
print Utils.rowcol_pair_to_cellrange(0,0,100,100)
print (0,0,100,100,True,False,False,False),'->',
print Utils.rowcol_pair_to_cellrange(
row1=0,col1=0,row2=100,col2=100,
row1_abs=True,col1_abs=False,
row2_abs=False,col2_abs=True
)

for name in (
'',"'quoted'","O'hare","X"*32,"[]:\\?/*\x00"
):
print 'Is %r a valid sheet name?' % name,
if Utils.valid_sheet_name(name):
print "Yes"
else:
print "No"
utilities.py

© Simplistix Ltd 2009

 Page 39

Other properties
There are many other properties that you can set on xlwt-related objects. They are all listed
below, for each of the types of object. The names are mostly intuitive but you are warned to
experiment thoroughly before attempting to use any of these in an important situation as
some properties exist that aren't saved to the resulting Excel files and some others are only
partially implemented.
xlwt.Workbook
owner vpos hscroll_visible
country_code width vscroll_visible
wnd_protect height tabs_visible
obj_protect active_sheet dates_1904
protect tab_width use_cell_values
backup_on_save wnd_visible
hpos wnd_mini
xlwt.Row
set_style height_mismatch hidden
height level space_above
has_default_height collapse space_below
xlwt.Column
set_style width level
width_in_pixels hidden collapse

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 Page 40

xlwt.Worksheet
name save_recalc
visibility print_headers
row_default_height_mismatch print_grid
row_default_hidden header_str
row_default_space_above footer_str
row_default_space_below print_centered_vert
show_formulas print_centered_horz
show_grid left_margin
show_headers right_margin
show_zero_values top_margin
auto_colour_grid bottom_margin
cols_right_to_left paper_size_code
show_outline print_scaling
remove_splits start_page_number
selected fit_width_to_pages
sheet_visible fit_height_to_pages
page_preview print_in_rows
first_visible_row portrait
first_visible_col print_colour
grid_colour print_draft
dialog_sheet print_notes
auto_style_outline print_notes_at_end
outline_below print_omit_errors
outline_right print_hres
fit_num_pages header_margin
show_row_outline footer_margin
show_col_outline copies_num
alt_expr_eval wnd_protect
alt_formula_entries obj_protect
row_default_height protect
col_default_height scen_protect
calc_mode password
calc_count
RC_ref_mode
iterations_on
delta

© Simplistix Ltd 2009

 Page 41

Some examples of Other Properties

The following sections contain examples of how to use some of the properties listed above.
Hyperlinks
Hyperlinks are a type of formula as shown in the following example:

from xlwt import Workbook,easyxf,Formula

style = easyxf('font: underline single')

book = Workbook()
sheet = book.add_sheet('Hyperlinks')

sheet.write(
0, 0,
Formula('HYPERLINK("http://www.python.org";"Python")'),
style)

link = 'HYPERLINK("mailto:python-
excel@googlegroups.com";"help")'
sheet.write(
1,0,
Formula(link),
style)

book.save("hyperlinks.xls")
hyperlinks.py

Images
Images can be inserted using the insert_bitmap method of the Sheet class:

from xlwt import Workbook

w = Workbook()
ws = w.add_sheet('Image')
ws.insert_bitmap('python.bmp', 0, 0)
w.save('images.xls')
images.py

NB: Images are not displayed by OpenOffice.org

© Simplistix Ltd 2009

 Page 42

Merged cells
Merged groups of cells can be inserted using the write_merge method of the Sheet
class:

from xlwt import Workbook,easyxf

style = easyxf(
'pattern: pattern solid, fore_colour red;'
'align: vertical center, horizontal center;'
)
w = Workbook()
ws = w.add_sheet('Merged')
ws.write_merge(1,5,1,5,'Merged',style)
w.save('merged.xls')
merged.py

Borders
Writing a single cell with borders is simple enough, however applying a border to a group
of cells is painful as shown in this example:

from xlwt import Workbook,easyxf

tl = easyxf('border: left thick, top thick')
t = easyxf('border: top thick')
tr = easyxf('border: right thick, top thick')
r = easyxf('border: right thick')
br = easyxf('border: right thick, bottom thick')
b = easyxf('border: bottom thick')
bl = easyxf('border: left thick, bottom thick')
l = easyxf('border: left thick')

w = Workbook()
ws = w.add_sheet('Border')
ws.write(1,1,style=tl)
ws.write(1,2,style=t)
ws.write(1,3,style=tr)
ws.write(2,3,style=r)
ws.write(3,3,style=br)
ws.write(3,2,style=b)
ws.write(3,1,style=bl)
ws.write(2,1,style=l)

w.save('borders.xls')
borders.py

NB: Extra care needs to be taken if you're updating an existing Excel file!

© Simplistix Ltd 2009

 Page 43

Split and Freeze panes

It is fairly straight forward to create frozen panes using xlwt.
The location of the split is specified using the integer vert_split_pos and
horz_split_pos properties of the Sheet class.
The first visible cells are specified using the integer vert_split_first_visible and
horz_split_first_visible properties of the Sheet class.
The following example shows them all in action:

from xlwt import Workbook

from xlwt.Utils import rowcol_to_cell

w = Workbook()
sheet = w.add_sheet('Freeze')
sheet.panes_frozen = True
sheet.remove_splits = True
sheet.vert_split_pos = 2
sheet.horz_split_pos = 10
sheet.vert_split_first_visible = 5
sheet.horz_split_first_visible = 40

for col in range(20):

for row in range(80):
sheet.write(row,col,rowcol_to_cell(row,col))

w.save('panes.xls')
panes.py

Split panes are a less frequently used feature and their support is less complete in xlwt.
The procedure for creating split panes is exactly the same as for frozen panes except that
the panes_frozen attribute of the Worksheet should be set to False instead of True.
However, if you really need split panes, you're advised to see professional help before
proceeding!

© Simplistix Ltd 2009

 Page 44

Outlines
These are a little known and little used feature of the Excel file format that can be very
useful when dealing with categorised data.
Their use is best shown by example:

from xlwt import Workbook

data = [
['','','2008','','2009'],
['','','Jan','Feb','Jan','Feb'],
['Company X'],
['','Division A'],
['','',100,200,300,400],
['','Division B'],
['','',100,99,98,50],
['Company Y'],
['','Division A'],
['','',100,100,100,100],
['','Division B'],
['','',100,101,102,103],
]
w = Workbook()
ws = w.add_sheet('Outlines')
for i,row in enumerate(data):
for j,cell in enumerate(row):
ws.write(i,j,cell)
ws.row(2).level = 1
ws.row(3).level = 2
ws.row(4).level = 3
ws.row(5).level = 2
ws.row(6).level = 3
ws.row(7).level = 1
ws.row(8).level = 2
ws.row(9).level = 3
ws.row(10).level = 2
ws.row(11).level = 3
ws.col(2).level = 1
ws.col(3).level = 2
ws.col(4).level = 1
ws.col(5).level = 2
w.save('outlines.xls')
outlines.py

© Simplistix Ltd 2009

 Page 45

Zoom magnification and Page Break Preview

The zoom percentage used when viewing a sheet in normal mode can be controlled by
setting the normal_magn attribute of a Sheet instance.
The zoom percentage used when viewing a sheet in page break preview mode can be
controlled by setting the preview_magn attribute of a Sheet instance.
A Sheet can also be made to show a page break preview by setting the page_preview
attribute of the Sheet instance to True.
Here's an example to show all three in action:

from xlwt import Workbook

w = Workbook()

ws = w.add_sheet('Normal')
ws.write(0,0,'Some text')
ws.normal_magn = 75

ws = w.add_sheet('Page Break Preview')

ws.write(0,0,'Some text')
ws.preview_magn = 150
ws.page_preview = True

w.save('zoom.xls')
zoom.py

© Simplistix Ltd 2009

 Page 46

Filtering Excel Files

Any examples shown below can be found in the xlutils directory of the course material.

Other utilities in xlutils

The xlutils package contains several utilities in addition to those for filtering. The
following are often useful:
xlutils.styles
This module contains one class which, when instantiated with an xlrd.Workbook, will let
you discover the style name and information from a given cell in that workbook as shown
in the following example:

from xlrd import open_workbook

from xlutils.styles import Styles

book = open_workbook('source.xls',formatting_info=True)
styles = Styles(book)
sheet = book.sheet_by_index(0)

print styles[sheet.cell(1,1)].name
print styles[sheet.cell(1,2)].name

A1_style = styles[sheet.cell(0,0)]
A1_font = book.font_list[A1_style.xf.font_index]
print book.colour_map[A1_font.colour_index]
styles.py

NB: For obvious reasons, open_workbook must be called with

formatting_info=True in order to use xlutils.styles.
Full documentation and examples can be found in the styles.txt file in the docs folder
of xlutils' source distribution.

© Simplistix Ltd 2009

 Page 47

xlutils.display
This module contains utility functions for easy and safe display of information returned by
xlrd.
quoted_sheet_name is called with the name attribute of an xlrd.sheet.Sheet
instance and will return an encoded string containing a quoted version of the sheet's name.
cell_display is called with an xlrd.sheet.Cell instance and returns an encoded
string containing a sensible representation of the cells contents, even for Date and Error
cells. If a date cell is to be displayed, cell_display must be called with the datemode
attribute of the xlrd.Book from which the cell came.
The following examples show both functions in action:

from xlrd import open_workbook

from xlutils.display import quoted_sheet_name
from xlutils.display import cell_display

wb = open_workbook('source.xls')

print quoted_sheet_name(wb.sheet_names()[0])
print repr(quoted_sheet_name(u'Price(\xa3)','utf-8'))
print quoted_sheet_name(u'My Sheet')
print quoted_sheet_name(u"John's Sheet")

sheet = wb.sheet_by_index(0)
print cell_display(sheet.cell(1,1))
print cell_display(sheet.cell(1,3),wb.datemode)
display.py

Full documentation and examples can be found in the display.txt file in the docs folder of
xlutils' source distribution.

© Simplistix Ltd 2009

 Page 48

xlutils.copy
This module contains one function that will take an xlrd.Book and returns an
xlwt.Workbook populated with the data and formatting found in the xlrd.Book.
This is extremely useful for updating an existing spreadsheet as the following example
shows:

from xlrd import open_workbook

from xlwt import easyxf
from xlutils.copy import copy

rb = open_workbook('source.xls',formatting_info=True)
rs = rb.sheet_by_index(0)
wb = copy(rb)
ws = wb.get_sheet(0)

plain = easyxf('')
for i,cell in enumerate(rs.col(2)):
if not i:
continue
ws.write(i,2,cell.value,plain)

for i,cell in enumerate(rs.col(4)):

if not i:
continue
ws.write(i,4,cell.value-1000)

wb.save('output.xls')
copy.py

It is important to note that some things won't be copied:

• Formulae
• Names
• anything ignored by xlrd
In addition to the modules described above, there are also xlutils.margins and
xlutils.save, but these are only useful in certain situations. Refer to their
documentation in the xlutils source distribution.

© Simplistix Ltd 2009

 Page 49

Structure of xlutils.filter
This framework is designed to filter and split Excel files using a series of modular readers,
filters and writers as shown in the diagram below:

process

Reader Filter 1 Filter 2 Writer

The flow of information between the components is by method calls on the next
component in the chain. The possible method calls are listed in the table below, where
rdbook is an xlrd.Book instance, rdsheet is an xlrd.sheet.Sheet instance,
rdrowx, rdcolx, wtrowx and wtcolx and integer indexes specifying the cell to read
from and write to, wtbook_name is a string specifying the name of the Excel file to write to
and wtsheet_name is a unicode specifying the name of the sheet to write to:
start() This method is called before processing of a batch of
input. It can be called at any time. One common use
is to reset all the filters in a chain in the event of an
error
during the processing of an rdbook.
workbook(rdbook,wtbook_name) This method is called every time processing of a new
workbook starts
sheet(rdsheet,wtsheet_name) This method is called every time processing of a new
sheet in the current workbook starts
set_rdsheet(rdsheet) This method is called to indicate a change for the
source of cells mid-way through writing a sheet.
row(rdrowx,wtrowx) The row method is called every time processing of a
new row in the current sheet starts.
cell(rdrowx,rdcolx,wtrowx,wtcolx) This is called for every cell in the sheet being
processed. This is the most common method in which
filtering and queuing of onward calls to the next
component takes place.
finish This method is called once processing of all
workbooks has been completed.

© Simplistix Ltd 2009

 Page 50

Readers
A reader's job is to obtain one or more xlrd.Book objects and iterate over those objects
issuing appropriate calls to the next component in the chain. The order of calling is
expected to be as follows:
• start
◦ workbook, once for each xlrd.Book object obtained
▪ sheet, once for each sheet found in the current book
▪ set_rdsheet, whenever the sheet from which cells to be read needs to be
changed. This method may not be called between calls to row and cell, and
between multiple calls to cell. It may only be called once all cell calls for a
row have been made.
• row, once for each row in the current sheet
◦ cell, once for each cell in the row
• finish, once all xlrd.Book objects have been processed
Also, for method calls made by a reader, the following should be true:
• wtbook_name should be the filename of the file the xlrd.Book object originated
from.
• wtsheet_name should be rdbook.name
• wtrowx should be equal to rdrowx
• rdcolx should be equal to wtcolx
Because of these restrictions, an xlutils.filter.BaseReader class is provided that
will normally only need to have one of two methods overridden to get any required
functionality:
• get_filepaths – if implemented, this must return an iterable sequence of paths
to excel files that can be opened with python's builtin file.
• get_workbooks – if implemented, this must return an sequence of 2-tuples. Each
tuple must contain an xlrd.Book object followed by a string containing the
filename of the file from which the xlrd.Book object was loaded.

© Simplistix Ltd 2009

 Page 51

Filters
Implementing these components is where the bulk of the work will be done by users of the
xlutils.filter framework. A Filter's responsibilities are to accept method calls from
the preceding component in the chain, do any processing necessary and then emit
appropriate method calls to the next component in the chain.
There is very little constraint on what order Filters receive and emit method calls other
than that the order of method calls emitted must remain consistent with the structure
given above. This enables components to be freely interchanged more easily.
Because Filters may only need to implement few of the full set of method calls, an
xlutils.filter.BaseFilter is provided that does nothing but pass the method calls
on to the next component in the chain. The implementation of this filter is useful to see
when embarking on Filter implementation:

class BaseFilter:

def start(self):
self.next.start()

def workbook(self,rdbook,wtbook_name):
self.next.workbook(rdbook,wtbook_name)

def sheet(self,rdsheet,wtsheet_name):
self.rdsheet = rdsheet
self.next.sheet(rdsheet,wtsheet_name)

def set_rdsheet(self,rdsheet):
self.rdsheet = rdsheet
self.next.set_rdsheet(rdsheet)

def row(self,rdrowx,wtrowx):
self.next.row(rdrowx,wtrowx)

def cell(self,rdrowx,rdcolx,wtrowx,wtcolx):
self.next.cell(rdrowx,rdcolx,wtrowx,wtcolx)

def finish(self):
self.next.finish()

© Simplistix Ltd 2009

 Page 52

Writers
These components do the grunt work of actually copying the appropriate information from
the rdbook and serialising it into an Excel file. This is a complicated process and not for
the feint of hard to re-implement.
For this reason, an xlutils.filter.BaseWriter component is provided that does all
of the hard work and has one method that needs to be implemented. That method is
get_stream and it is called with the filename of the Excel file to be written.
Implementations of this method are expected to return a new file-like object that has a
write and, by default, a close method each time they are called.
Subclasses may also override the boolean close_after_write attribute, which is True
by default, to indicate that the file-like objects returned from get_stream should not
have their close method called once serialisation of the Excel file data is complete.
It is important to note that some things won't be copied from the rdbook by
BaseWriter:
• Formulae
• Names
• anything ignored by xlrd
Process
The process function is responsible for taking a series of components as its arguments. The
first of these should be a Reader. The last of these should be a Writer. The rest should be
the necessary Filters in the order of processing required.
The process method will wire these components together by way of their next attributes
and then kick the process off by calling the Reader and passing the first Filter in the chain
as its argument.

© Simplistix Ltd 2009

 Page 53

A worked example
Suppose we want to filter an existing Excel file to omit rows that have an X in the first
column.
The following example shows possible components to do this and shows how they would
be instantiated and called to achieve this:

import os
from xlutils.filter import \
BaseReader,BaseFilter,BaseWriter,process

class Reader(BaseReader):
def get_filepaths(self):
return [os.path.abspath('source.xls')]

class Writer(BaseWriter):
def get_stream(self,filename):
return file(filename,'wb')

class Filter(BaseFilter):
pending_row = None
wtrowxi = 0
def workbook(self,rdbook,wtbook_name):
self.next.workbook(rdbook,'filtered-'+wtbook_name)
def row(self,rdrowx,wtrowx):
self.pending_row = (rdrowx,wtrowx)
def cell(self,rdrowx,rdcolx,wtrowx,wtcolx):
if rdcolx==0:
value = self.rdsheet.cell(rdrowx,rdcolx).value
if value.strip().lower()=='x':
self.ignore_row = True
self.wtrowxi -= 1
else:
self.ignore_row = False
rdrowx, wtrowx = self.pending_row
self.next.row(rdrowx,wtrowx+self.wtrowxi)
elif not self.ignore_row:
self.next.cell(
rdrowx,rdcolx,wtrowx+self.wtrowxi,wtcolx-1
)

process(Reader(),Filter(),Writer())
filter.py

In reality, we would not need to implement the Reader and Writer components, as there
are already suitable components included.

© Simplistix Ltd 2009

 Page 54

Existing components
The xlutils.filter framework comes with a wide range of existing components, each of
which is briefly described below. For full descriptions and worked examples of all these
components, please see filter.txt in the docs folder of the xlutils source
distribution.
GlobReader
If you're processing files that are on disk, then this is probably the reader for you. It
returns all files matching the path specification it's instantiated with.
XLRDReader
This reader can be used at the start of a chain when you already have an xlrd.Book object
and you'll looking to process it with xlutils.filter.
TestReader
This reader is specifically designed for testing filterimplementations with known sets of
cells.
DirectoryWriter
If you want files you're processing to end up on disk, then this is probably the writer for
you. It stores files in the directory it is instantiated with.
StreamWriter
If you want to write exactly one workbook to a stream, such as a
tempfile.TemporaryFile or sys.stdout, then this is the writer for you.
XLWTWriter
If you want to change cells after the filtering process is complete then this writer can be
used to obtain the xlwt.Workbook objects that BaseWriter generates.
ColumnTrimmer
This filter will strip columns containing no useful data from the end of sheets. The
definition of “no useful data” can be controlled during instantiation of this filter.
ErrorFilter
This filter caches all method calls in a file on disk and will only pass them on the next
component in the chain when its finish method has been called and no error messages
have been logged to the python logging framework.
If Boolean or error Cells are encountered, an error message will be logged to the python
logging framework will will also usually mean that no methods will be emitted from this
component to the next component in the chain.
Finally, cell method calls corresponding to Empty cells in rdsheet will not be passed on
to the next component in the chain.
Calling this component's start method will reset it.
Echo
This filter will print calls to the methods configured when the filter is instantiated along
with the arguments passed.

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 Page 55

MemoryLogger
This filter will dump stats to the path it was configured with using the heapy package if it is
available. If it is not available, no operations are performed.
For more information on heapy, please see http://guppy-pe.sourceforge.net/#Heapy

© Simplistix Ltd 2009

 Page 56

Possible Tasks for Workshop

The following is a list of tasks that can be attempted by any attendee who hasn't brought
their own tasks to attempt.
Installation with IronPython
The libraries have been used successfully with IronPython, but this has not been
thoroughly tests or documented.
Installation with Jython
The libraries should all work with Jython, but no one has so far attempted to do so.
Inserting a row into a sheet
Starting with an existing Excel file, attempt to create a new Excel file with a row inserted at
a given position.
Splitting a Book into its Sheets
Starting with an existing Excel file, create a directory containing one file for each
worksheet in the original file.
Reporting errors in a directory full on Excel files
Scan a directory of Excel files and report the location of any error cells.
A progression of this task is to allow the passing of options to indicate what types of error
to report.
Removing Rows containing errors
Starting with an existing Excel file, create a filtering process that generates a new Excel file
that excludes any rows containing error cells.
A progression of this task is to generate a new Excel file that contains empty cells where
there were errors in the original file.
Filtering Excel files to and from a web server
This task is to create components for xlutils.filter that can read from a website and write
back to that website.
The task should result in an HTTPReader and an HTTPWriter.
Producing a report from a database
This task is to take a typical database query and dump it into an Excel file such that the
heading row is set up nicely with decent alignment in a frozen pane.
As a precursor to this task, you may need to set up a typical database!

© Simplistix Ltd 2009