Work with excel files

Warning

The pyexcel DOES NOT consider Fonts, Styles, Formulas and Charts at all. When you load a stylish excel and update it, you definitely will lose all those.

Open a csv file

Read a csv file is simple:

>>> import pyexcel as p
>>> sheet = p.get_sheet(file_name="example.csv")
>>> sheet
example.csv:
+---+---+---+
| 1 | 4 | 7 |
+---+---+---+
| 2 | 5 | 8 |
+---+---+---+
| 3 | 6 | 9 |
+---+---+---+

The same applies to a tsv file:

>>> sheet = p.get_sheet(file_name="example.tsv")
>>> sheet
example.tsv:
+---+---+---+
| 1 | 4 | 7 |
+---+---+---+
| 2 | 5 | 8 |
+---+---+---+
| 3 | 6 | 9 |
+---+---+---+

Meanwhile, a tab separated file can be read as csv too. You can specify a delimiter parameter.

>>> with open('tab_example.csv', 'w') as f:
...     unused = f.write('I\tam\ttab\tseparated\tcsv\n') # for passing doctest
...     unused = f.write('You\tneed\tdelimiter\tparameter\n') # unused is added
>>> sheet = p.get_sheet(file_name="tab_example.csv", delimiter='\t')
>>> sheet
tab_example.csv:
+-----+------+-----------+-----------+-----+
| I   | am   | tab       | separated | csv |
+-----+------+-----------+-----------+-----+
| You | need | delimiter | parameter |     |
+-----+------+-----------+-----------+-----+

Add a new row to an existing file

Suppose you have one data file as the following:

• example.xls

And you want to add a new row:

12, 11, 10

Here is the code:

>>> import pyexcel as pe
>>> sheet = pe.get_sheet(file_name="example.xls")
>>> sheet.row += [12, 11, 10]
>>> sheet.save_as("new_example.xls")
>>> pe.get_sheet(file_name="new_example.xls")
pyexcel_sheet1:
+----------+----------+----------+
| Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3 |
+----------+----------+----------+
| 1        | 4        | 7        |
+----------+----------+----------+
| 2        | 5        | 8        |
+----------+----------+----------+
| 3        | 6        | 9        |
+----------+----------+----------+
| 12       | 11       | 10       |
+----------+----------+----------+

Update an existing row to an existing file

Suppose you want to update the last row of the example file as:

[‘N/A’, ‘N/A’, ‘N/A’]

Here is the sample code:

.. code-block:: python

>>> import pyexcel as pe
>>> sheet = pe.get_sheet(file_name="example.xls")
>>> sheet.row[3] = ['N/A', 'N/A', 'N/A']
>>> sheet.save_as("new_example1.xls")
>>> pe.get_sheet(file_name="new_example1.xls")
pyexcel_sheet1:
+----------+----------+----------+
| Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3 |
+----------+----------+----------+
| 1        | 4        | 7        |
+----------+----------+----------+
| 2        | 5        | 8        |
+----------+----------+----------+
| N/A      | N/A      | N/A      |
+----------+----------+----------+

Add a new column to an existing file

And you want to add a column instead:

[“Column 4”, 10, 11, 12]

Here is the code:

>>> import pyexcel as pe
>>> sheet = pe.get_sheet(file_name="example.xls")
>>> sheet.column += ["Column 4", 10, 11, 12]
>>> sheet.save_as("new_example2.xls")
>>> pe.get_sheet(file_name="new_example2.xls")
pyexcel_sheet1:
+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3 | Column 4 |
+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| 1        | 4        | 7        | 10       |
+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| 2        | 5        | 8        | 11       |
+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| 3        | 6        | 9        | 12       |
+----------+----------+----------+----------+

Update an existing column to an existing file

Again let’s update “Column 3” with:

[100, 200, 300]

Here is the sample code:

>>> import pyexcel as pe
>>> sheet = pe.get_sheet(file_name="example.xls")
>>> sheet.column[2] = ["Column 3", 100, 200, 300]
>>> sheet.save_as("new_example3.xls")
>>> pe.get_sheet(file_name="new_example3.xls")
pyexcel_sheet1:
+----------+----------+----------+
| Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3 |
+----------+----------+----------+
| 1        | 4        | 100      |
+----------+----------+----------+
| 2        | 5        | 200      |
+----------+----------+----------+
| 3        | 6        | 300      |
+----------+----------+----------+

Alternatively, you could have done like this:

>>> import pyexcel as pe
>>> sheet = pe.get_sheet(file_name="example.xls", name_columns_by_row=0)
>>> sheet.column["Column 3"] = [100, 200, 300]
>>> sheet.save_as("new_example4.xls")
>>> pe.get_sheet(file_name="new_example4.xls")
pyexcel_sheet1:
+----------+----------+----------+
| Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3 |
+----------+----------+----------+
| 1        | 4        | 100      |
+----------+----------+----------+
| 2        | 5        | 200      |
+----------+----------+----------+
| 3        | 6        | 300      |
+----------+----------+----------+

How about the same alternative solution to previous row based example? Well, you’d better to have the following kind of data:

• row_example.xls

And then you want to update “Row 3” with for example:

[100, 200, 300]

These code would do the job:

>>> import pyexcel as pe
>>> sheet = pe.get_sheet(file_name="row_example.xls", name_rows_by_column=0)
>>> sheet.row["Row 3"] = [100, 200, 300]
>>> sheet.save_as("new_example5.xls")
>>> pe.get_sheet(file_name="new_example5.xls")
pyexcel_sheet1:
+-------+-----+-----+-----+
| Row 1 | 1   | 2   | 3   |
+-------+-----+-----+-----+
| Row 2 | 4   | 5   | 6   |
+-------+-----+-----+-----+
| Row 3 | 100 | 200 | 300 |
+-------+-----+-----+-----+