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, including datetimes) are supported, column and row formatting is supported (width/height/visibility), conditional formatting, and auto filtering 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:

• Produced ODS file
• Source code

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 of G4, it will produce $G4.
• r: Pin the row. I.e., instead of G4, it will produce G$4.
• b: Put the cell expression in braces, e.g., produce [.G4] instead of G4. This is required inside all fomula expressions which are manually created and will lead to subtle errors if omitted.

All of these can be combined, here is an example of a sheet "Sheet" with cell G4:

• a: Sheet.G4
• c: $G4
• r: G$4
• cr: $G$4
• acr: Sheet.$G$4
• abcr: [Sheet.$G$4]

Formulas

odsexport offers a thin layer of expressions so that Pythonic formula references can be used in an operator-overloaded manner. When those formulas and cell references are used, the cell notation is automatically put in braces. For example, this is a valid construct:

cylinder_volume = (odsexport.CellRef(radius_cell) ** 2) * 3.1415 * height_cell

Note that you only need to wrap the cell into an expression once (here, using odsexport.CellRef), then subsequent mathematical operations are automatically wrapped. Note that you can construct formulas by using Python constructs which will be translated into formulas. Even expressions can be written natively in Python. Consider this example:

hour_ref = odsexport.CellRef(hour_cell)
formula = ((hour_ref >= 0) & (hour_ref <= 24)).then("Valid", else_value = "Invalid")

Which will render to the Excel formula =IF(AND(B20>=0;B20<=24);"Valid";"Invalid").

Here, the relational operators <, <=, >, >=, == and != may be used as well as & for boolean AND, | for boolean OR and ~ for boolean NOT.

Manual formulas

You can also completely manually write the formulas as strings. Inside such formulas, brace notation must be used for all cell references. odsexport does treat formulas which are provided as strings as-is and acts completely dumb with them. It will happily accept anything you throw at it. However, note that a misformatted formula (e.g., a cell that uses Sheet.G4 instead of the correct [Sheet.G4]) will lead to interoperability issues. OpenOffice will read such a document just fine while Excel will reject it and throw an error. It is the responsibility of the odsexport user to use cell references correctly when using manual formulas.

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. Oh, or have you looked at the SUBTOTAL function? You know, that function that computes different things depending on a given function index as a parameter? Like, if you want a SUM, that's function 9 but if you want the maximum value that's obviously 4. Who ever thought this train wreck of spreadsheeting was even remotely acceptable? Why is this whole standard so terribly inconsistent and requires [brackets] for cell references in certain cases, but not others? Why does Excel hide a column just right if table:visibility is set to collapse but doesn't do the same for rows unless there is a style name set (even if that style is completely empty)? Who can actually, seriously, work with this raging dumpster fire?

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.

Acknowledgements

The cute watermelon 16x16 icon is courtesy of Suzana Assets (Fruits Icons - 16x16). Thanks!

License

GNU GPL-3.