Javier, The only thing I could think of trying would be pyodbc (assuing you're on a Windows machine, which I know you were trying to avoid) and trying to write through an ODBC connection. Something like:
cnxn=pyodbc.connect("""Driver={Microsoft Excel Driver (*.xls, *.xlsx,
*.xlsm, *.xlsb)}; Dbq=c:\\datafiles\\XLSfile.xls; readonly=0""",
autocommit=True)
I haven't tested this though, so it's really just clutching at straws.
Otherwise I'm not sure of any Python files that modify Excel in place. Good
luck!
Cheers,
Henry
On 4 Feb 2014, at 3:53 pm, Javier Candeira <[email protected]> wrote:
> Then, just to be clear: there doesn't seem to exist a Python library
> that will roundtrip an excel sheet to its original state just by
> reading it in and writing it again, without modification. Correct?
>
> J
>
> On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 3:48 PM, Henry Walshaw <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Hi Javier,
>>
>> Like Matt below I'd recommend taking a look at openpyxl
>> (http://pythonhosted.org/openpyxl/) We've used it a lot recently and it does
>> give a great deal over formatting of the outgoing Excel workbook.
>> Unfortunately it does not support reading images and charts from an existing
>> workbook, so they would be lost if you tried reading an existing workbook as
>> a template (openpyxl works with Excel data in memory and only accesses the
>> file handler on save or load, which means that modifying an existing
>> workbook is a case of reading the data in, updating the data and then saving
>> a new excel file over the original one). However I think it's a good choice
>> if all you're doing is manipulating workbooks full of data that the template
>> is applied to later.
>>
>> Cheers
>> -Henry
>>
>>
>> On 4 Feb 2014, at 3:38 pm, Javier Candeira <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks everyone. Some more background and answers:
>>>
>>> - I'm a LibreOffice fan (this is me after a love night with two
>>> LibreOffice hackers [1]), but this has to be MS Office. I'm automating
>>> an entrenched reporting process that produces pixel-perfect A4
>>> documents for printing, and I can't recreate the accumulated work
>>> expressed in the existing sheets.
>>> - I'm also a Google Spreadsheets fan, to the point where I have
>>> contributed to a library for accessing it. [2] But same as above.
>>> - xlwt or xlutil might work if it allows me to manipulate existing
>>> spreadsheets. If not, I'd try creating my reporting template and
>>> linking it to sheets with sample data, and to recreate the
>>> data-bearing sheets every week/month/whenever.
>>> - I don't really need to generate macros or charts, because there are
>>> templates that have them already. I really only have to put in data in
>>> an existing database (and munge the incoming data a bit before writing
>>> the neat rows and columns).
>>>
>>> [1] http://www.flickr.com/photos/hiperactivo/4364689348/
>>> [2] https://github.com/burnash/gspread
>>>
>>> Thanks again, and sorry for not giving enough background at the start
>>> of the thread.
>>>
>>> J
>>>
>>> On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 3:22 PM, Rasjid Wilcox <[email protected]>
>>> wrote:
>>>> Hi Javier,
>>>>
>>>> I use xlwt (https://pypi.python.org/pypi/xlwt) to generate XLS
>>>> spreadsheets.
>>>> It is a fork of pyExcelerator which is not longer maintained.
>>>>
>>>> For fairly standard spreadsheets it works well. You can do basic
>>>> formatting, both in terms of fonts (bold etc), and also in terms of numeric
>>>> formatting (currency and date formats etc).
>>>>
>>>> Last I checked (and I don't think this has changed), it does not do charts
>>>> or fancy stuff like that.
>>>>
>>>> As long as it meets your needs it terms of spreadsheet complexity, it will
>>>> work well. Runs on any platform (will be fine on a Linux web-server), and
>>>> is fast.
>>>>
>>>> I looked into this extensively a few years ago - at the time it was
>>>> definitely the way to go as long as it meets your requirements in terms of
>>>> capabilities.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Your other options are:
>>>>
>>>> Under Linux etc.
>>>> Use a head-less copy of OpenOffice, and use its automation (pyUno) to
>>>> generate a spreadsheet that way. Be prepared for a lot of pain.
>>>> Use Jython (or bridge to java in some way) and use one of the Java
>>>> libraries to generate XLS files. At least one of these has basic support
>>>> for charts (although you may need a base template file to work from).
>>>>
>>>> I know there are some .Net libraries that can also generate xlsx files -
>>>> these may work under Mono and IronPython.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Under Windows:
>>>> All of the above, with the bonus that any .Net libraries are definitely
>>>> going to work.
>>>> Automate MS Office using Python's COM support.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The pro's of using automation (either OpenOffice or MS Office) is that you
>>>> will get access to a much greater range of features. It will, however, be
>>>> slow, and can take noticeable amounts of time to generate a large
>>>> spreadsheet.
>>>>
>>>> Any of the libraries that generate the file directly will be *much* faster,
>>>> and a better fit for server-side deployment.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hmm... just seen your last email regarding macros. Not sure if xlwt
>>>> supports that. You may have luck with the xlutils library mentioned -
>>>> otherwise you may need to move to one of the more heavy duty options -
>>>> either using a Java or .Net / Mono library, or going for full automation
>>>> (I'd suggest MS Office over OpenOffice if going that route).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>
>>>> Rasjid.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 4/02/2014 2:29 PM, Javier Candeira wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> At work I need to manipulate a series of excel spreasheets, and I seem
>>>>> to remember that people have discussed the topic in a meeting. I have
>>>>> two questions to anyone who's already had to do the same:
>>>>>
>>>>> - What's the current best Python library for excel manipulation?
>>>>> - Are there any limitations for handling Excel sheets under Linux?
>>>>> What kind of thing would I need Windows (and presumably, a live copy
>>>>> of Office) for?
>>>>>
>>>>> As background for the question, I'm trying to avoid using Windows at
>>>>> all. My ideal workflow would involve users downloading generated
>>>>> spreadsheets from a webserver.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>
>>>>> Javier
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>
>>>>> melbourne-pug mailing list
>>>>> [email protected]
>>>>> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/melbourne-pug
>>>>
>>>>
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