How to Open a Worksheet in Excel Using Python

In today’s digital age, automation tools are playing an essential role in making life easier. One such handy tool is Python, a high-level, general-purpose programming language known for its simplicity and robustness.

In this tutorial, we will learn how to open an Excel worksheet using Python, which can be extremely useful in automation and data analysis tasks. Let’s dive in and learn more about this!

Prerequisites

Before we begin with the steps to open an Excel worksheet using Python, there are a few prerequisites required:

  • Python – The tutorial assumes that you have Python installed on your computer. If not, you can download Python from the official website.
  • pandas – pandas is a powerful data manipulation library in Python. We will use it to open Excel worksheets. You can install it using the pip package manager with the command: pip install pandas
  • openpyxl – We will also use the openpyxl library to handle Excel files (.xlsx). You can install it with the command: pip install openpyxl

Step 1: Import the Libraries

The first step is to import the necessary libraries in our Python script. Here, we will use pandas and openpyxl.

Step 2: Create an Excel File

Next, we will create an Excel file. For the purpose of this example, let’s assume that the Excel file is called “sample.xlsx” and is present in the same directory as your Python script. The file has a single sheet named “Sheet1” with the following data:

Table: sample.xlsx

FirstNameLastName
JohnDoe
JaneDoe

Step 3: Read the Excel File

Now, we will read this Excel file using the Pandas function read_excel() and print the content.

Step 4: Output

If you execute the above script, you should get the contents of the Excel file printed on the console:

FirstName LastName
0      John      Doe
1      Jane      Doe

Now it is clear that with just two lines of code, we can read the content of an Excel file using Python.

Full Code

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we learned how to access an Excel worksheet using Python. By leveraging the power of Python libraries, namely pandas, we can import and manipulate data in Excel worksheets. This can be particularly useful when performing data analysis or automating tasks that involve dealing with large datasets. Happy Python Coding!