Python openpyxl Tutorial: Reading, Writing, and Manipulating Excel Files with Practical Examples

This article explains how to use the Python openpyxl library to programmatically handle Excel workbooks, highlighting its usefulness for automating repetitive spreadsheet tasks.

First, install the library via pip install openpyxl and verify the installation by importing it without errors.

Basic operations demonstrated include loading a workbook with openpyxl.load_workbook(), retrieving sheet names, accessing the active sheet, selecting a sheet by name, and reading individual cell values or ranges.

Writing data is performed by assigning values to cells using either the sheet['C4'].value = "value" syntax or sheet.cell(row=4, column=4).value = "value", which works well with loops.

Four illustrative examples are provided:

Creating an N×N multiplication table with bold headers.

Inserting M blank rows starting at a specified row N.

Transposing rows and columns of an existing sheet.

Reading multiple text files and writing each file's lines into separate columns of a spreadsheet.

Each example includes a brief implementation idea and references to the corresponding code snippets (shown as images in the original source). The article concludes that these fundamental openpyxl techniques serve as building blocks for more complex Excel automation tasks.