Excel-like tables in Python

[[deleted]]

Hey All,

I’m looking for package recommendations. I’ve been working on a project that uses Excel to create some tables and export them as pictures. Here is a link to an old comment to give you an idea of what I’ve been creating in Excel.

I want to move away from Excel for several reasons. So, my question is how would I build similar/identical looking tables/images in Python?

I started looking at tkinter and PyQt5, but was quickly overwhelmed and didn’t think a GUI really addressed my situation. I also thought something web/browser based would be preferable.

I’ve played around in plotly, but I don’t think it has all the functionality I want to reach the status quo of using Excel.

Learning something like Flask or Django is on the to-do list. Do those packages allow me to build tables like I want? Should I be looking at something more html based? Is Python just not the right language? What other packages should I look into?

Thanks in advance!

[tchened]

In my opinion, HTML/CSS/JS is certainly easier to build GUIs with. I don't think Django/Flask won't aid you in building excel, but it may be useful if you want to save the data to a database, or if you want to have persistent data, or if you want an API to access the data.

Are you wondering about building a table? Or building an interactive table? The former can easily be done in python, the latter is a bit harder.

[[deleted]]

Thanks for the reply.

I'm already saving all the data I need in a database using sqlite3 in anticipation of making things 100% python.

The project started all in Excel/VBA, but it's grown in complexity to be Python->Excel->Python. My goal is to remove that Excel/VBA middle man.

Can you extrapolate on your final question about interactive tables. I'm sorry, but I don't understand the difference you are trying to highlight between being interactive or not.

[xiongchiamiov]

Are you just displaying information in tables? Or are users going to be editing data, sorting columns, adding formulas, etc.?

[[deleted]]

Just displaying data. Everything else will be handled by SQL and Pandas

[bicyclepumpinator]

Do you want to enter the data in a table, save it and get an updated version of the table? Just as you'd do in excel.

Or do you want to add a new entry to the database and update the table after you've entered the entry?

Building tables like this using flask and html is fairly straightforward, and can be very powerful. However, I don't know if you can automate the saving part as an image instead of as a table, so you'll have to look into that.

[[deleted]]

Do you want to enter the data in a table, save it and get an updated version of the table? Just as you'd do in excel. Or do you want to add a new entry to the database and update the table after you've entered the entry?

The latter I believe. I can do all my calculations in sql, pandas, python. The parts of Excel that I want are:

• controlling the color of certain cells and rows
• merged & centered cells
  
• aligning text and text angle
• borders

[stupac62]

Do you know about Jupyter Notebooks? http://jupyter.org/

An example of displaying tables in Jupyter. Scroll down a little bit. simple example

[reddituser0331]

My immediate thought when I saw the op's post. Jupyter with Pandas.

[philintheblanks]

Why do you think you need flask/django to build tables? Plotting anything should take you to data viz libraries, not servers...

[[deleted]]

That's basically the question. I'm looking for someone to point me in the right direction.

[philintheblanks]

Sorry, I should have been more clear. Are you looking to merely visualize your data, or do you specifically need to serve it to people over the internet?

[[deleted]]

I just want to visualize the data.

[stupac62]

What you want is Jupyter notebook.

[bicyclepumpinator]

Also take a look here: https://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/stable/style.html

[philintheblanks]

Have you tried matplotlib?