The easiest way to deploy your Python powered Excel tools

xlwings makes it easy to deploy your Python powered Excel tools on Windows. Just zip up your Excel and Python files and send them to your users with the following instructions:

1. Install a scientific Python distribution like Anaconda, Canopy or WinPython *.
2. Extract the zip file and work with the Excel workbook as usual.

*Note that xlwings works with every Python installation but then you need to manually install pywin32 which can sometimes be a bit troublesome.

Developing the Excel tool

On the developer side, xlwings is equally easy:

1. Open the VBA editor (Alt-F11), then go to File > Import File... and import the xlwings.bas file. Alternatively, just work off the example.xlsm and continue to the next step:

2. Call Python from VBA like so:

   Sub Example()
       RunPython ("import example; example.rand_numbers()")
   End Sub

3. This essentially hands over control to example.py :

   import numpy as np
   from xlwings import Workbook
   
   wb = Workbook()  # Creates a reference to the calling Excel file
   
   def rand_numbers():
       """ produces standard normally distributed random numbers with dim (n,n)"""
       n = wb.range('Sheet1', 'B1').value
       rand_num = np.random.randn(n, n)
       wb.range('Sheet1', 'C3').value = rand_num

Interactive use

xlwings let's you comfortably interact with Excel by calling Workbook() either with no arguments to work off a new file or with the full path to your Excel file (from your favorite Python environment). Range can be used as shortcut for wb.range(). It always refers to the workbook created last. Also, when omitting the sheet name, it refers to the currently active sheet.

>>> from xlwings import Workbook, Range
>>> wb = Workbook(r'C:\full\path\to\file.xlsx')  # Use Workbook() for a new file
>>> Range('A1').value = 'Hello xlwings!'
>>> Range('A1').value
u'Hello xlwings!'

License

BSD (3-clause) license