Microsoft Excel is widely used in almost every industry. Because of its user-friendly interface and ease of use for organizing data, doing calculations, and analyzing data sets, it is widely used in a range of businesses around the world.
For many applications, you won’t want to utilize Excel to perform complex calculations or manage large data sets, but you may need to use Excel numbers as inputs, publish reports in Excel format, or provide Excel users with tools. Python is a better alternative for challenging tasks, and thanks to the Python developer’s extensive toolkit, Excel and Python may be used simultaneously.
Creating Interactive Python Tools using Excel as a Front-End:
Excel is a well-known and powerful user interface for a variety of tasks. When working on more sophisticated operations or with larger information, though, you’ll quickly reach the limits of what Excel can realistically do. Python is a widely-used programming language in data science and other fields since it can handle more complex situations than Excel alone. You can construct incredibly powerful interactive applications that use Excel as a user-friendly front end while Python handles all of the heavy liftings by merging the two and understanding their capabilities.
Working with Excel Files in Python
This page contains basic information on using Excel files with Python.
Reading and Writing Excel Files
There are Python packages for working with Excel files that operate on any Python platform and don’t require Windows or Excel. They’re dependable, quick, and open source:
xlrd
You can use this program to read and format data from older Excel files (ie: .xls)
xlwt
This program is used to add data and formatting to old Excel files (ie: .xls)
xlutils
This package includes utilities for copying, altering, and filtering existing excel files that require both xlrd and xlwt.
openpyxl
This is a highly recommended package for reading and writing Excel 2010 files (ie: .xlsx)
Xlsxwriter
Alternative program for writing data, formatting information, and, in particular, charting, that is Excel 2010 compatible (ie: .xlsx)
pyxlsb
This software can open and read Excel files in the xlsb format.
pylightxl
You may read and write xlsx and xlsm files using this program.
Developing Excel Add-Ins
To make Excel add-ins, utilize the Python packages listed below. They, unlike the reader and writer programs, necessitate the installation of Microsoft Excel.
PyXLL
PyXLL is a commercial program that lets you develop Excel add-ins in Python instead of Visual Basic. Python functions can be provided by using worksheet functions (UDFs), macros, menus, and ribbon toolbars.
Xlwings
xlwings is an open-source toolkit that runs on Windows and Mac OS X and automates Excel using Python rather than VBA. It enables you to call Python from Excel and vice versa, as well as create Python UDFs (Windows only). xlwings PRO is a commercial add-on with more functionality.
Final Thoughts: You can learn more about Python and Excel from blogs, video tutorials, and other resources. The good news is that there are numerous free resources available on the internet. Our advice is to learn from youtube. It’s fun and entertaining. There are plenty of videos on Youtube if you search “Python tutorial.” The only problem is that you have no idea which video to select. And the one you select might not be the right one for you. Worrynot, we have got you covered.
Learning effective skills like Pythona and Excel is now easier than ever with online learning, especially when there are online learning platforms like LearnTube which presents you with the top most curated content.
