Open a Workbook with XLWINGS without making it visible

Question

I am starting to use XLWings (not that I like Excel, at all, but it is something I HAVE TO do). The thing is that I cannot find the way to make Python open a Workbook without showing it.

It seems the constructor for Workbooks in the old XLWings 0.6.4 was xlwings.Workbook, and one of the arguments was a flag 'app_visible' (see http://docs.xlwings.org/en/v0.6.4/api.html).

However, in the new v0.9.2 Workbook has been replaced by Book, and Book does not have any such flag (http://docs.xlwings.org/en/stable/api.html). The App object does have it, and I thought that was the way to go. So I coded:

import xlwings as xw  app = xw.App(visible=False) filename = os.path.join(PATH_EXCEL_SAMPLES, r"rangosConDatos_sample01.xls") book = xw.Book(filename) # Do stuff with the info in the book book.close()  # Ya puedo cerrar el libro. app.kill() 

But, regretably, when

book = xw.Book(filename) 

is executed the 'visible' attribute of app suddenly becomes True, and the book is shown. I do not know if this is a desired feature or an unexpected behaviour. Anyway, any ideas how should I do it?

Answer 1

Here is my working code fragment:

    import xlwings      excel_app = xlwings.App(visible=False)     excel_book = excel_app.books.open('PATH_TO_YOUR_XLSX_FILE')     excel_book.save()     excel_book.close()     excel_app.quit() 

Answer 2

Since version 0.24.3, where with xw.App is implemented, the idiomatic way is:

import xlwings as xw  with xw.App(visible=False) as app:     book = xw.Book("test.xlsx")      # Do some stuff e.g.     book.sheets[0]["A1"].value = 12345      book.save("test.xlsx")     book.close() 

The advantage of this is that there won't be any hidden excel processes left over in the background, if you use a hidden instance and your code fails.