I am able to import data from an excel file using Pandas by using:
xl = read_excel(\'path_to_file.xls\', \'Sheet1\', index_col=None, na_values=[\'NA\'])
The most simple way is to use applymap and lambda if you only want to highlight certain values:
df.style.applymap(lambda x: "background-color: red" if x>0 else "background-color: white")