_ _ _ _

xlrd is a library for reading data and formatting information from Excel files in the historical .xls format.

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.

Quick start:

pip install xlrd

import
 xlrd

book
 =
 xlrd
.
open_workbook
(
"myfile.xls"
)
print
(
"The number of worksheets is {0}"
.
format
(
book
.
nsheets
))
print
(
"Worksheet name(s): {0}"
.
format
(
book
.
sheet_names
()))
sh
 =
 book
.
sheet_by_index
(
0
)
print
(
"{0} {1} {2}"
.
format
(
sh
.
name
, 
sh
.
nrows
, 
sh
.
ncols
))
print
(
"Cell D30 is {0}"
.
format
(
sh
.
cell_value
(
rowx
=
29
, 
colx
=
3
)))
for
 rx
 in
 range
(
sh
.
nrows
):
    
print
(
sh
.
row
(
rx
))

From the command line, this will show the first, second and last rows of each sheet in each file:

python PYDIR/scripts/runxlrd.py 3rows 
*
blah
*
.xls