Update an Excel sheet in real time using Python

Question

Is there a way to update a spreadsheet in real time while it is open in Excel? I have a workbook called Example.xlsx which is open in Excel and I have the following python code

Answer 1

You've already worked out why you can't use openpyxl to write to the .xlsx file: it's locked while Excel has it open. You can't write to it directly, but you can use win32com to communicate with the copy of Excel that is running via its COM interface.

You can download win32com from https://github.com/mhammond/pywin32 .

Use it like this:

from win32com.client import Dispatch
xlApp = Dispatch("Excel.Application")
wb=xlApp.Workbooks.Item("MyExcelFile.xlsx")
ws=wb.Sheets("MyWorksheetName")

At this point, ws is a reference to a worksheet object that you can change. The objects you get back aren't Python objects but a thin Python wrapper around VBA objects that obey their own conventions, not Python's.

There is some useful if rather old Python-oriented documentation here: http://timgolden.me.uk/pywin32-docs/contents.html

There is full documentation for the object model here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/wss56bz7.aspx but bear in mind that it is addressed to VBA programmers.