How to open an Excel file with Python to display its content? [closed]

Answer 1

To simply open a file in its default application, you can use

import os
file = "C:\\Documents\\file.txt"
os.startfile(file)

This will open the file in whatever application is associated with the file extension.

There are some drawbacks however, so if you want to do some more advanced handling of the file (such as closing it later), you need a more advanced approach. You can try the solution to my question here which shows how to use subprocess.popen() to keep track of the file, and then close it. Here's the general idea:

>>> import psutil
>>> import subprocess
>>> doc = subprocess.Popen(["start", "/WAIT", "file.pdf"], shell=True)   #Stores the open file as doc
>>> doc.poll()                                                           #Shows that the process still exists (will return 0 if the /WAIT argument is excluded from previous line)
>>> psutil.Process(doc.pid).get_children()[0].kill()                     #Kills the process
>>> doc.poll()                                                           #Shows that the process has been killed
0
>>> 

This retains the file you opened as the doc object so that it can be easily closed later

Answer 2

Just to complement wnnmaw's answer, subprocess.popen supports context management and the 'with' operator, which provides a nice, clean, Pythonic way to handle the opening and closing of the file. Basically, there's no need to explicitly close the file with this approach.

import psutil
import subprocess
with subprocess.Popen(["start", "/WAIT", "file.pdf"], shell=True) as doc:
    # use 'doc' here just as you would the file itself
    doc.poll()
    doStuff(doc)
    for line in readline(doc):
        etc, etc...

# then just continue with the rest of your code.

The 'with' statement will automatically handle the opening and closing for you, and it's nice and easy to read. The one caveat you must bear in mind is that this is only good for one file at a time. If your function is going to deal with multiple files at once you're better off handling the open/close manually.

If you just want to pass control over to Excel (relying on the end-user to close the file in Excel when finished), see the first part of wnnmaw's answer.