Easily write formatted Excel from Python: Start with Excel formatted, use it in Python, and regenerate Excel from Python

Question

I have to create Excel spreadsheet with nice format from Python. I thought of doing it by:

1. I start in Excel as it is very easy to format: I write in Excel the model I want, with the good format
2. I read this from Python
3. I create from Python an Excel spreadsheet with the same format

In the end, the purpose is to create from Python Excel spreadsheets, but formatting with xlwt takes a lot of time, so I thought of formatting first in Excel to help.

I have researched for easy ways to doing this but haven't found any. I can stick to my current working solution, using xlwt in Python to create formatted Excel, but it is quite awkward to use.

Thanks for any reply

Answer 1

Thanks for your replies. I've found what I was searching for at Preserving styles using python's xlrd,xlwt, and xlutils.copy. The code is below.

import xlrd 
import xlutils.copy 

inBook = xlrd.open_workbook('input.xls', formatting_info=True) 
outBook = xlutils.copy.copy(inBook) 

def _getOutCell(outSheet, colIndex, rowIndex): 
    """ HACK: Extract the internal xlwt cell representation. """ 
    row = outSheet._Worksheet__rows.get(rowIndex) 
    if not row: return None 
    cell = row._Row__cells.get(colIndex) 
    return cell 

def setOutCell(outSheet, col, row, value): 
    """ Change cell value without changing formatting. """ 
    # HACK to retain cell style. 
    previousCell = _getOutCell(outSheet, col, row) 
    # END HACK, PART I 
    outSheet.write(row, col, value) 
    # HACK, PART II 
    if previousCell: 
        newCell = _getOutCell(outSheet, col, row) 
    if newCell: 
        newCell.xf_idx = previousCell.xf_idx 
    # END HACK 


outSheet = outBook.get_sheet(0) 
setOutCell(outSheet, 5, 5, 'Test') 
outBook.save('output.xls') 

Answer 2

You said:

formatting with xlwt takes a lot of time

and

it is quite awkward to use

Perhaps you are not using easyxf? If so, check out the tutorial that you can access via www.python-excel.org, and have a look at examples/xlwt_easyxf_simple_demo.py in your xlwt installation.