Python-native ODS writer library
Project description
odsexport
odsexport is a Python-native library to create ODS (Open Document Spreadsheet)
documents. In other words, it lets you script creating "Excel" sheets from
within Python. The focus is on providing a feature-rich document creation
abstraction: all kinds of cell formatting options (data and style formatting)
are supported, column and row formatting is supported (width/height/visibility)
and conditional formatting is implemented as well. odsexport is intended to
make it easy to use ODS documents as a data sink while creating documents that
are mutable (i.e., recalculate their cells according to formulas). An example
of what documents it can produce is given in the example
directory along with
the source code that produced it.
Cell formatting
When handing cells or cell ranges from odsexport, there are three format characters that are understood:
a
: Create an absolute reference, i.e., include the sheet name. Needs to be used when referencing cells between different sheets.c
: Pin the column. I.e., instead ofG4
, it will produce$G4
.r
: Pin the row. I.e., instead ofG4
, it will produceG$4
.
All of these can be combined, here is an example of a sheet "Sheet" with cell
G4
:
a
: Sheet.G4c
: $G4r
: G$4cr
: $G$4acr
: Sheet.$G$4
Rant
Personally, I hate Excel or LibreOffice with a burning passion. That such an
ugly, stinking turd of software is used by millions of people around the globe
already seems odd. It is pretty much guaranteed that somewhere the salaries of
people depend on this utterly shitty, piss-poor quality application. Worse yet,
possibly some engineer is making structural computations using Excel, where
lives may depend on the accuracy of the results. The thought alone makes me
want to cry out in pain. Software so stupid, broken and obnoxious that
computations may not only not work on the exact same software with a different
locale setting, nooooo, even worse: it may silently ignore the locale errors
and produce wrong results. Don't believe me? Try counting values using
COUNTIF()
with a condition that counts values greater than/less than a
fractional value and observe what happens when the locale setting (e.g., 4.1
vs. 4,1
) is different than the number you enter. It really is that dumb.
Excel/LibreOffice Calc is an utter disgrace. And yet, just like thousands of people before me, I need to cope with it. To me, that compromise is having actual good data quality in a safe haven and only exporting to Excel when needed.
License
GNU GPL-3.
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