Python as an Excel scripting language

Let us do scripting with Python! Yay! Not only as an alternative to VBA, but also as an alternative to field functions (=SUM(A1:A2))

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Daniel shared this idea · Nov 4, 2015 · Flag idea as inappropriate… · Admin →

Accepting Votes ·

AdminExcel Team [MSFT] (Admin, Office.com) responded · Feb 28, 2018

Wow.

Thank you to all those participated in our survey. What an amazing number of responses, many of them with very deep content. We’re processing the over ten thousand responses(!), and already appreciate the time so many of you took to answer with passion and experience.

Please know this survey is used to help influence various topics – both on Python as well as other related topics that the comments started to bleed into. Given the passion, I want to be clear this remains an area of exploration for us, without any specific timeline.

We’ll provide updates as we progress on this feature request.

Thanks!

Ashvini Sharma
Lead Program Manager
Excel

Show previous admin responses (5)

info needed ·

AdminExcel Team [MSFT] (Admin, Office.com) responded · Dec 14, 2017

Hi folks –

Thanks for the continued passion around this topic.

We’d like to gather more information to help us better understand the needs around Excel and Python integration.

To help us with this, can you please complete the survey below?

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=v4j5cvGGr0GRqy180BHbR7tUuWqOwSJFpBE5ZLhdkgtUMkhZWlkxRjhDRklXSjNTVkNSWkE2WlNQMS4u

Ashvini Sharma
Lead Program Manager
Microsoft Excel

Accepting Votes ·

Ashvini Sharma (Lead Program Manager, Microsoft) responded · Oct 6, 2017

HI folks,

Thanks for the continued passion around this.

We’ve been busy building an infrastructure that allows remote execution of arbitrary code from custom functions in Excel. This was introduced last week at the Microsoft Ignite conference with Azure Machine Learning (https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/tools-for-the-ai-driven-digital-transformation/), which itself can host code in various runtimes.

This is just the beginning, and doesn’t cover many of the scenarios this user voice item now has. Just wanted to drop a quick note saying we’re continuing to work to deliver the scenario we announced with high quality and explore other integration points.

Thanks again

Ashvini Sharma,
Lead Program Manager
Microsoft Excel

Accepting Votes ·

Ashvini Sharma (Lead Program Manager, Microsoft) responded · Nov 9, 2015

Thanks for voting for this item. We’re going to investigate this for a future update to Excel.. of course the probability of getting it done goes up proportionately to the votes we get on this item, so please gather as many votes as you can!

Also, would love to hear if you have preferences for ordering between Python or R.

thanks
ash [MS XL]

edit: hello /r/python from reddit. Great to see insightful discussion along similar lines to what we’ve been bouncing around internally.

Accepting Votes ·

Ashvini Sharma (Lead Program Manager, Microsoft) responded · Nov 5, 2015

Also, would love to hear if you have preferences for ordering between Python or R.

thanks
ash [MS XL]

Accepting Votes ·

Ashvini Sharma (Lead Program Manager, Microsoft) responded · Nov 5, 2015

Also, would love to hear if you have preferences between Python or R.

thanks
ash [MS XL]

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CPM commented · March 16, 2019 2:39 PM · Flag as inappropriate

Guys,
go to https://youtu.be/f6VqQsfO6E4 and wait no longer!
I am so stoked to go to work in monday!
Kent Maxwell commented · March 16, 2019 1:42 PM · Flag as inappropriate

My recommendation is provided Python support in Power Query for Excel, just like it's being now offered in Power Query in Power BI. I do not understand why Power Query is not the same for both products. Why does Power BI get all the new love?
Paul Mulherin commented · March 14, 2019 3:09 AM · Flag as inappropriate

PyXLL looks very nice Tony!

Sadly only half of our team use Office for Windows and the rest are running Office for Mac OSX so I'm still waiting for an official, Microsoft-supported Python solution that covers *both* versions of Excel... :-/
Tony Roberts commented · March 14, 2019 2:23 AM · Flag as inappropriate

You can use PyXLL, the Python Excel Add-In to do this. You can use it to write user defined function, macros, menus, RTD functions and customise the ribbon all in Python.

See https://www.pyxll.com.

You can use it to do anything you can in VBA and more, and it supports all versions of Python.
Spinor8 commented · March 10, 2019 10:29 AM · Flag as inappropriate

This would be fantastic if we can use Python in Excel.
Anonymous commented · March 8, 2019 12:20 AM · Flag as inappropriate

Make it so.
That would make excel really awesome.
Combining the tools and easyness of python and the ease of visualisation of excel. Especially in a corporate-environment.
Livio commented · March 7, 2019 11:36 PM · Flag as inappropriate

Please do it, this would be an amazing thing!
Anonymous commented · March 7, 2019 2:46 PM · Flag as inappropriate

Yes I agree. Any word yet? Not sure If it has been addressed but IMHO it also needs to integrate the macro recorder with python. The recorder is an excellent way to learn the Excel object model.
Anonymous commented · March 7, 2019 1:48 PM · Flag as inappropriate

Echoing the comments of others, just wondering if there is an update on this
AKG commented · March 6, 2019 5:13 AM · Flag as inappropriate

Any updates to this please? When are you planning to Roll it?
Alex Reed commented · February 18, 2019 9:48 AM · Flag as inappropriate

Now I can't speak for Mac users, but if you're a Windows' User, you can technically start integrating the whole VBA object model with Python.

For example, if I want to copy between Excel & PowerPoint using Python I can do this with Win32 Python library, this allows us to plugin to the Windows' API and control different objects.

One of the coolest things about this library is that if use it inside of a Jupyter notebook I can run Python code real time inside of my Excel workbook. This means I can make API calls, dump data into Excel or even upload data to a Python object.

If, for example, you wanted to run Pandas real time inside of Excel this is also possible. The only reason I know this is I've written some scripts that will allow me to do this.

Now the documentation for all of this is few and far between; it's just not covered very well. This is why I started making YouTube videos on it because it changes the way we can look at Office and I know people could benefit from it. Using Python with Excel VBA is one of those things for some reason that never got out, and I don't think people ever realized you could do it.

If you want to check out the videos I made a playlist that covers some introduction topics:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcFcktZ0wnNnf4eh5ObzPzoLFOzTiFVKa
Bill Tubbs commented · February 14, 2019 6:46 AM · Flag as inappropriate

I think trying to integrate Python with Excel would be like putting lipstick on a pig. We really need a complete re-design of Excel’s underlying data structures, objects, functions, the formula writing language, how it allocates memory and the calculation method. This would hopefully solve the long-standing problems with crashes and lost work that we all experience on a regular basis. When these things are done it would be a good time to include a good scripting language like Python.
Jamal Mahmoud commented · February 14, 2019 2:08 AM · Flag as inappropriate

yes
Monty Python commented · February 14, 2019 2:01 AM · Flag as inappropriate

Go for it !!!!
Anonymous commented · January 16, 2019 10:37 PM · Flag as inappropriate

Excel and Python! Perfect! Excel + xlwings powered my application this year.
Anonymous commented · January 16, 2019 8:58 AM · Flag as inappropriate

what have happened about it?
Anonymous commented · January 5, 2019 7:58 PM · Flag as inappropriate

The best together. Python and Excel
Henrik Sylvin commented · January 4, 2019 2:30 PM · Flag as inappropriate

I love Excel and Python!

Henrik Sylvin
Tom commented · January 1, 2019 11:04 AM · Flag as inappropriate

Being able to script Excel with Python would be great. It would be most useful if there were an API that could be used to run Excel using general-purpose Python scripts written in any environment. For example, I currently use xlwings to call Python user defined functions which, in turn, connect to other external tools, such as the DWSIM Standalone Thermodynamics Library. One further complication: that library is a .NET assembly, which means I also need pythonnet.
Anything that streamlines the process of exporting third-party calculation results to Excel would be appreciated. My end users expect a pure, simple spreadsheet interface, yet need to access functionality contained in complex tools.
Anonymous commented · December 26, 2018 7:44 PM · Flag as inappropriate

TOTALLY AGREE