Python, COM & Excel

[DP]

Thanks Brandon (and to Graeme who wrote directly to me). It's pretty much what
I've been doing - recording macros. But there are some things that the macro
recording does not show. I'm not too shabby with Excel, unfortunately my
requirements usually far exceed my knowledge...


"Brandon Beck" <bbeck at NOSPAM.austin.rr.com> wrote in message
news:6orW9.65051$Pb.2682414 at twister.austin.rr.com...
| About a year ago I was in your shoes, I wish I had a sample to follow
| back then.  I ended up learning most of this the hard way, so to help
| you out I put together a sample fictitious report that should give you a
| good example to follow.  You can find it online at:
| http://www.isomorphism.org/~bbeck/scripts/ExcelReport.py
|
| The first thing you need to know for sure, is that you should generate
| the necessary python COM bindings for Excel using the "COM Makepy
| utility."  If you use python win, then you can invoke it from within
| pythonwin directly off of the tools menu.  You'll want bindings for the
| "Microsoft Excel xx.x Object Library."  I believe Office2k is 9.0 and
| OfficeXP is 10.0, but I could be wrong.
|
| I find the best way to figure out exactly what COM calls you need to
| make, is to have a sample spreadsheet of the report you want to
| generate, and record macros of yourself doing the actions you want your
| report to automatically do.  Once you're done, go look at the generated
| VBA code, and the functions that are being called.  There is usually a
| 1:1 correspondence between those functions and the ones you need to call
| via COM from python.  I also tend to try to avoid using the ActiveSheet
| or ActiveWindow objects.  I haven't ever found a need for them given
| that my python scripts usually always know exactly which worksheet
| they're dealing with.
|
| Hope this helps get you started in the right direction.
|
|
|
|
| DP wrote:
| > Hello all,
| >
| > I'm doing some work with Python, & COM integration (win32all v. 1.52
| > installed with Pthon 2.2.2). I'm having a difficult time getting
| > started. Some of the functions/objects I expect will work don't,
| > others work in unexpected ways. I'd very much appreciate pointers,
| > sample scripts, etc. from individuals who have had better luck with
| > Python & Excel integration. I'm working primarily with Excel 2000 and
| > MS Word. I hope to be able to figure things out myself later, pointers
| > will be appreciated.
| >
| > BTW I'd get the "Python & Win32" book in normal circumstances, but
| > currently this is not possible.
| >
| > Thanks in advance.
| >
| > Dinil.
|