data manipulation

[Krishna]

I have a script that reads an excel file and and do manipulations on
it. But, now, I have a text file that needs the same manipulation. I
tried the same script, but it will not work, when I use command such
as: workbook = xlrd.open_workbook('C:/trial.txt'), its giving me
errors saying "expected BOF record". I was wondering how to work
around this. Do I have to do some format conversion to accomplish this
or am I missing something

Thanks
Krishna