Reading/parsing Excel (xls) files with Python [closed]

Question

I highly recommend xlrd for reading .xls files. But there are some limitations(refer to xlrd github page):

Warning

This library will no longer read anything other than .xls files. For alternatives that read newer file formats, please see http://www.python-excel.org/.

The following are also not supported but will safely and reliably be ignored:

- Charts, Macros, Pictures, any other embedded object, including embedded worksheets.
- VBA modules
- Formulas, but results of formula calculations are extracted.
- Comments
- Hyperlinks
- Autofilters, advanced filters, pivot tables, conditional formatting, data validation

Password-protected files are not supported and cannot be read by this library.

voyager mentioned the use of COM automation. Having done this myself a few years ago, be warned that doing this is a real PITA. The number of caveats is huge and the documentation is lacking and annoying. I ran into many weird bugs and gotchas, some of which took many hours to figure out.

UPDATE: For newer .xlsx files, the recommended library for reading and writing appears to be openpyxl (thanks, Ikar Pohorský).

Using pandas:

import pandas as pd

xls = pd.ExcelFile(r"yourfilename.xls") #use r before absolute file path 

sheetX = xls.parse(2) #2 is the sheet number+1 thus if the file has only 1 sheet write 0 in paranthesis

var1 = sheetX['ColumnName']

print(var1[1]) #1 is the row number...

You can choose any one of them http://www.python-excel.org/
I would recommended python xlrd library.

install it using

pip install xlrd

import using

import xlrd

to open a workbook

workbook = xlrd.open_workbook('your_file_name.xlsx')

open sheet by name

worksheet = workbook.sheet_by_name('Name of the Sheet')

open sheet by index

worksheet = workbook.sheet_by_index(0)

read cell value

worksheet.cell(0, 0).value    

I think Pandas is the best way to go. There is already one answer here with Pandas using ExcelFile function, but it did not work properly for me. From here I found the read_excel function which works just fine:

import pandas as pd
dfs = pd.read_excel("your_file_name.xlsx", sheet_name="your_sheet_name")
print(dfs.head(10))

P.S. You need to have the xlrd installed for read_excel function to work

Update 21-03-2020: As you may see here, there are issues with the xlrd engine and it is going to be deprecated. The openpyxl is the best replacement. So as described here, the canonical syntax should be:

dfs = pd.read_excel("your_file_name.xlsx", sheet_name="your_sheet_name", engine="openpyxl")