Tutorial¶
Create a workbook¶
There is no need to create a file on the filesystem to get started with openpyxl.
Just import the Workbook
class and start work:
>>> from openpyxl import Workbook
>>> wb = Workbook()
A workbook is always created with at least one worksheet. You can get it by
using the Workbook.active
property:
>>> ws = wb.active
Note
This is set to 0 by default. Unless you modify its value, you will always get the first worksheet by using this method.
You can create new worksheets using the Workbook.create_sheet()
method:
>>> ws1 = wb.create_sheet("Mysheet") # insert at the end (default)
# or
>>> ws2 = wb.create_sheet("Mysheet", 0) # insert at first position
# or
>>> ws3 = wb.create_sheet("Mysheet", -1) # insert at the penultimate position
Sheets are given a name automatically when they are created.
They are numbered in sequence (Sheet, Sheet1, Sheet2, …).
You can change this name at any time with the Worksheet.title
property:
ws.title = "New Title"
The background color of the tab holding this title is white by default.
You can change this providing an RRGGBB
color code to the
Worksheet.sheet_properties.tabColor
attribute:
ws.sheet_properties.tabColor = "1072BA"
Once you gave a worksheet a name, you can get it as a key of the workbook:
>>> ws3 = wb["New Title"]
You can review the names of all worksheets of the workbook with the
Workbook.sheetname
attribute
>>> print(wb.sheetnames)
['Sheet2', 'New Title', 'Sheet1']
You can loop through worksheets
>>> for sheet in wb:
... print(sheet.title)
You can create copies of worksheets within a single workbook:
Workbook.copy_worksheet()
method:
>>> source = wb.active
>>> target = wb.copy_worksheet(source)
Note
Only cells (including values, styles, hyperlinks and comments) and certain worksheet attribues (including dimensions, format and properties) are copied. All other workbook / worksheet attributes are not copied - e.g. Images, Charts.
You also cannot copy worksheets between workbooks. You cannot copy a worksheet if the workbook is open in read-only or write-only mode.
Playing with data¶
Accessing one cell¶
Now we know how to get a worksheet, we can start modifying cells content. Cells can be accessed directly as keys of the worksheet:
>>> c = ws['A4']
This will return the cell at A4, or create one if it does not exist yet. Values can be directly assigned:
>>> ws['A4'] = 4
There is also the Worksheet.cell()
method.
This provides access to cells using row and column notation:
>>> d = ws.cell(row=4, column=2, value=10)
Note
When a worksheet is created in memory, it contains no cells. They are created when first accessed.
Warning
Because of this feature, scrolling through cells instead of accessing them directly will create them all in memory, even if you don’t assign them a value.
Something like
>>> for x in range(1,101):
... for y in range(1,101):
... ws.cell(row=x, column=y)
will create 100x100 cells in memory, for nothing.
Accessing many cells¶
Ranges of cells can be accessed using slicing:
>>> cell_range = ws['A1':'C2']
Ranges of rows or columns can be obtained similarly:
>>> colC = ws['C']
>>> col_range = ws['C:D']
>>> row10 = ws[10]
>>> row_range = ws[5:10]
You can also use the Worksheet.iter_rows()
method:
>>> for row in ws.iter_rows(min_row=1, max_col=3, max_row=2):
... for cell in row:
... print(cell)
<Cell Sheet1.A1>
<Cell Sheet1.B1>
<Cell Sheet1.C1>
<Cell Sheet1.A2>
<Cell Sheet1.B2>
<Cell Sheet1.C2>
Likewise the Worksheet.iter_cols()
method will return columns:
>>> for col in ws.iter_cols(min_row=1, max_col=3, max_row=2):
... for cell in col:
... print(cell)
<Cell Sheet1.A1>
<Cell Sheet1.A2>
<Cell Sheet1.B1>
<Cell Sheet1.B2>
<Cell Sheet1.C1>
<Cell Sheet1.C2>
Note
For performance reasons the Worksheet.iter_cols()
method is not available in read-only mode.
If you need to iterate through all the rows or columns of a file, you can instead use the
Worksheet.rows
property:
>>> ws = wb.active
>>> ws['C9'] = 'hello world'
>>> tuple(ws.rows)
((<Cell Sheet.A1>, <Cell Sheet.B1>, <Cell Sheet.C1>),
(<Cell Sheet.A2>, <Cell Sheet.B2>, <Cell Sheet.C2>),
(<Cell Sheet.A3>, <Cell Sheet.B3>, <Cell Sheet.C3>),
(<Cell Sheet.A4>, <Cell Sheet.B4>, <Cell Sheet.C4>),
(<Cell Sheet.A5>, <Cell Sheet.B5>, <Cell Sheet.C5>),
(<Cell Sheet.A6>, <Cell Sheet.B6>, <Cell Sheet.C6>),
(<Cell Sheet.A7>, <Cell Sheet.B7>, <Cell Sheet.C7>),
(<Cell Sheet.A8>, <Cell Sheet.B8>, <Cell Sheet.C8>),
(<Cell Sheet.A9>, <Cell Sheet.B9>, <Cell Sheet.C9>))
or the Worksheet.columns
property:
>>> tuple(ws.columns)
((<Cell Sheet.A1>,
<Cell Sheet.A2>,
<Cell Sheet.A3>,
<Cell Sheet.A4>,
<Cell Sheet.A5>,
<Cell Sheet.A6>,
...
<Cell Sheet.B7>,
<Cell Sheet.B8>,
<Cell Sheet.B9>),
(<Cell Sheet.C1>,
<Cell Sheet.C2>,
<Cell Sheet.C3>,
<Cell Sheet.C4>,
<Cell Sheet.C5>,
<Cell Sheet.C6>,
<Cell Sheet.C7>,
<Cell Sheet.C8>,
<Cell Sheet.C9>))
Note
For performance reasons the Worksheet.columns
property is not available in read-only mode.
Values only¶
If you just want the values from a worksheet you can use the Worksheet.values
property.
This iterates over all the rows in a worksheet but returns just the cell values:
for row in ws.values:
for value in row:
print(value)
Both Worksheet.iter_rows()
and Worksheet.iter_cols()
can
take the values_only
parameter to return just the cell’s value:
>>> for row in ws.iter_rows(min_row=1, max_col=3, max_row=2, values_only=True):
... print(row)
(None, None, None)
(None, None, None)
Data storage¶
Once we have a Cell
, we can assign it a value:
>>> c.value = 'hello, world'
>>> print(c.value)
'hello, world'
>>> d.value = 3.14
>>> print(d.value)
3.14
Saving to a file¶
The simplest and safest way to save a workbook is by using the
Workbook.save()
method of the Workbook
object:
>>> wb = Workbook()
>>> wb.save('balances.xlsx')
Warning
This operation will overwrite existing files without warning.
Note
The filename extension is not forced to be xlsx or xlsm, although you might have some trouble opening it directly with another application if you don’t use an official extension.
As OOXML files are basically ZIP files, you can also open it with your favourite ZIP archive manager.
Saving as a stream¶
If you want to save the file to a stream, e.g. when using a web application
such as Pyramid, Flask or Django then you can simply provide a
NamedTemporaryFile()
:
>>> from tempfile import NamedTemporaryFile
>>> from openpyxl import Workbook
>>> wb = Workbook()
>>> with NamedTemporaryFile() as tmp:
wb.save(tmp.name)
tmp.seek(0)
stream = tmp.read()
You can specify the attribute template=True, to save a workbook as a template:
>>> wb = load_workbook('document.xlsx')
>>> wb.template = True
>>> wb.save('document_template.xltx')
or set this attribute to False (default), to save as a document:
>>> wb = load_workbook('document_template.xltx')
>>> wb.template = False
>>> wb.save('document.xlsx', as_template=False)
Warning
You should monitor the data attributes and document extensions for saving documents in the document templates and vice versa, otherwise the result table engine can not open the document.
Note
The following will fail:
>>> wb = load_workbook('document.xlsx')
>>> # Need to save with the extension *.xlsx
>>> wb.save('new_document.xlsm')
>>> # MS Excel can't open the document
>>>
>>> # or
>>>
>>> # Need specify attribute keep_vba=True
>>> wb = load_workbook('document.xlsm')
>>> wb.save('new_document.xlsm')
>>> # MS Excel will not open the document
>>>
>>> # or
>>>
>>> wb = load_workbook('document.xltm', keep_vba=True)
>>> # If we need a template document, then we must specify extension as *.xltm.
>>> wb.save('new_document.xlsm')
>>> # MS Excel will not open the document
Loading from a file¶
The same way as writing, you can use the openpyxl.load_workbook()
to
open an existing workbook:
>>> from openpyxl import load_workbook
>>> wb2 = load_workbook('test.xlsx')
>>> print wb2.sheetnames
['Sheet2', 'New Title', 'Sheet1']
This ends the tutorial for now, you can proceed to the Simple usage section