Python for Excel

Felix Zumstein (FZ), the author of "Python for Excel" (PfE), is an excellent technical writer. Throughout the book he strikes the perfect balance between brief, clear and informative. In the genre of technical writing, PfE is the nearest thing to a page-turner I've encountered. I can honestly say I learned something significant, interesting and useful on nearly every page of the book.Part I, Part II and the three appendices cover Python and the powerful pandas data analysis package. As an experienced coder with little prior exposure to Python, I found these sections of the book to be quick and easy to read, and I'm now using them as a reference that I turn to again and again as I bolster my Python skills. If you're looking to get up to speed with Python, I believe you'll find PfE to be a great resource, even if you don't plan to use Excel or VBA in your work.Part III and Part IV cover the bidirectional integration of Python with Excel and VBA, and usage of the xlwings package to simplify this complicated task. As an experienced Excel + VBA developer with considerable prior exposure to cross-platform work, I find using PfE + xlwings to integrate with Python to be a relative cakewalk. If you're looking to integrate Python with Excel and VBA, I believe PfE + xlwings is the way to go, and I strongly recommend them to you.I'll close by sharing some information about me for context. I've been developing quantitative models/applications for a long time, and I have considerable experience coding with C/C++, C# and S-Plus/R, and a lot of experience coding with VBA for Excel. As far as Python goes, though, I had only dabbled with it before now. I have a few Python books on my bookshelf, but none of them had inspired me to take the plunge and really learn it. Then PfE came along and, because I'm an avid Excel user and developer, I was excited to buy a copy and dive headlong into Python. PfE proved to be a tremendously worthwhile investment for me, both in terms of the nominal cost of the book and in terms of the considerable time to work through it. Python is now an indispensable tool in my coding tool kit; I've started developing a Python-powered Excel workbook add-in of my own, and I'm confident it will greatly streamline my quantitative development and quantitative analysis efforts in the very near future and for many years to come. Thank you FZ for sharing your incredible work with me, by way of the book and by way of xlwings.

Tres util et facile a comprehendre

As VBA & Python user this book has been of great support for me – the introduction chapters are a refreshment of the basic (but often misunderstood!) elements in a development environment i.e. package managers, conda environments, virtual environments, IDEs, etc…The rest of the book is only getting better covering all the functionalities and different ways in which xlwings can be used to connect Python with Excel. One of those books that you read, and directly understand without the need of a second source of knowledge.To have a written reference that goes hand and hand with a “very alive” Python library is a win situation for anyone writing code in Python, but wanting to interact with Excel. Thank you.

Questo libro è un blocco fondamentale per chi vuole interagire con Excel (software statico) e Python (linguaggio di programmazione dinamico). Lavoro in una azienda dove molti utenti , anche ingegnere, sfruttano e sanno usare solo Excel come se fosse il software che risolve tutti i problemi aziendali. Il motto è con Excel e con il copia incolla si fa tutto. Il risultato è spesso software fatto in vba da prestazioni molto inefficienti e quantità incredibile di copie dello stesso software con una valanga di errori. Attraverso la programmazione struttura invece si ottengo prestazioni, velocità nei risultati e controllo degli errori. Soprattutto una unica copia del software. Questo comporta tempo di sviluppo rapidi, risultati certi è più tempo libero rispetto ad altri colleghi che continuano a lavorare in Excel. Uso il tempo libero che ho per perfezionare ulteriormente la mia preparazione e migliorare i miei risultati aumentando il gap nei risultati rispetto ai miei colleghi. Dunque imparare a programmare ed ad automatizzare Excel può diventare molto utile per migliorare la propria capacità e i propri risultati. Ovviamente bisogna studiare.

This is a fantastic book. No previous knowledge of Python or Excel is really required (although I did have to Google a few bits).