xlsrd

#! /usr/bin/env python

# Read and print an excel .xls spreadsheet.
# Thanks to http://scienceoss.com/read-excel-files-from-python/

import sys, xlrd

def print_sheet(sheetname, sh) :
    # Gnumeric makes null sheets, with 0 rows and 0 columns.
    # Guard against division by zero in gnumeric spreadsheets:
    if not sh or sh.ncols <= 0 :
        print "Null sheet", sheetname
        return

    print "===== sheet", sheetname, ": rows", sh.nrows, "cols", sh.ncols

    # set a maximum on any one column.
    # Ideally this would be smarter,
    # and would let one long row expand if the rest were shorter.
    maxlen = 80 / sh.ncols

    # Get max len for each col
    maxstr = [1] * sh.ncols
    for rownum in range(sh.nrows) :
        for colnum in range(sh.ncols) :
            # Figure out how many characters this cell needs.
            # This would be easy except for Python's 
            val = sh.cell(rownum, colnum).value

            # This gets lots of null strings, so filter them out:
            if not val :
                continue

            #print "type:", type(val), val
            slen = len(unicode(val))
            #if slen > maxlen : slen = maxlen
            if slen > maxstr[colnum] :
                maxstr[colnum] = slen

    fmt = ""
    for colnum in range(sh.ncols) :
        fmt += "%%-%ds" % (maxstr[colnum] + 1)

    for rownum in range(sh.nrows) :
        print fmt % tuple(map(unicode, sh.row_values(rownum)))

for filename in sys.argv[1:] :
    wb = xlrd.open_workbook(filename)
    #sh = wb.sheet_by_index(0)
    for sheetname in wb.sheet_names() :
        print_sheet(sheetname, wb.sheet_by_name(sheetname))