In this article I shall be looking into using the Python module “openpyxl” to manipulate data within the Python ecosystem, while also being able to tap into excel functionality directly. I believe Python is a much better ecosystem within which to do any kind of data munging/analysis, however Excel is a much used platform, favoured by many as the means of final presentation once the munging/analysis has been completed.
Also, while using Python within a business office environment, users can often come across the situation whereby they need to present their findings/results to their colleagues who often times don’t even have Python or the necessary modules installed.
So how about this – being able to use Python to do the data analysis grunt work, AND being able to use Python to call native Excel methodology including conditional formatting, chart creation/insertion among other things, rather than having to save tabular data to excel/csv and THEN opening Excel and creating charts and including formatting that way.
Sounds good to me!