Reading OpenOffice spreadsheet in Python?

Skip Montanaro skip at pobox.com
Tue May 20 12:38:06 EDT 2014


I don't have Windows and since upgrading my Mac to Mavericks I no
longer have Excel of any flavor. I have a few Excel spreadsheets in
which I store parameters from which I generate other config files. I
read those spreadsheets using xlrd.

I am so fed up with LibreOffice's inability to properly support really
basic Excel capabilities, I'm about ready to throw my computer out the
window. So, I'm looking for alternatives. Before someone suggests
config parser/Windows INI files... A spreadsheet format is kinda handy
in this case because I do use a few formulas to define some of the
parameters. Adding a new row (new config file) or column (new
parameter) is a breeze. The simplest solution would seem to be to
submit to LibreOffice's terror and just start saving my spreadsheets
in OpenDocument format. That then puts me in the market for an xlrd
replacement. Is there something akin to xlrd for OpenDocument
spreadsheets? I see a couple possibilities in PyPI (exodf, odfpy), but
none which have a really high weight (suggesting they are "category
killers").

I'm open to other options as well. I see a number of Google
spreadsheet modules, and there is pyspread. The former has the
permission issue (besides, where I work everything goes into Git), and
I'm not sure how full-featured or stable the latter is (but, will
investigate).

Thx,

Skip



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