Convert CSV to Excel xlsx in Python

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Problem Formulation

💡 Challenge: Given a CSV file. How to convert it to an excel file in Python?

csv to excel in Python

We create a folder with two files, the file csv_to_excel.py and my_file.csv. We want to convert the CSV file to an excel file so that after running the script csv_to_excel.py, we obtain the third file my_file.csv in our folder like so:

All methods discussed in this tutorial show different code snippets to put into csv_to_excel.py so that it converts the CSV to XLSX in Python.

Method 1: 5 Easy Steps in Pandas

The most pythonic way to convert a .csv to an .xlsx (Excel) in Python is to use the Pandas library.

  1. Install the pandas library with pip install pandas
  2. Install the openpyxl library that is used internally by pandas with pip install openpyxl
  3. Import the pandas libray with import pandas as pd
  4. Read the CSV file into a DataFrame df by using the expression df = pd.read_csv('my_file.csv')
  5. Store the DataFrame in an Excel file by calling df.to_excel('my_file.xlsx', index=None, header=True)
import pandas as pd


df = pd.read_csv('my_file.csv')
df.to_excel('my_file.xlsx', index=None, header=True)

Note that there are many ways to customize the to_excel() function in case

  • you don’t need a header line,
  • you want to fix the first line in the Excel file,
  • you want to format the cells as numbers instead of strings, or
  • you have an index column in the original CSV and want to consider it in the Excel file too.

If you want to do any of those, feel free to read our full guide on the Finxter blog here:

🌍 Tutorial: Pandas DataFrame.to_excel() – An Unofficial Guide to Saving Data to Excel

Also, we’ve recorded a video on the ins and outs of this method here:

Let’s have a look at an alternative to converting a CSV to an Excel file in Python:

Method 2: Modules csv and openpyxl

To convert a CSV to an Excel file, you can also use the following approach:

  • Import the csv module
  • Import the openpyxl module
  • Read the CSV file into a list of lists, one inner list per row, by using the csv.reader() function
  • Write the list of lists to the Excel file by using the workbook representation of the openpyxl library.
  • Get the active worksheet by calling workbook.active
  • Write to the worksheet by calling worksheet.append(row) and append one list of values, one value per cell.

The following function converts a given CSV to an Excel file:

import csv
import openpyxl


def csv_to_excel(csv_filename, excel_filename):

    # Read CSV file
    csv_data = []
    with open(csv_filename) as f:
        csv_data = [row for row in csv.reader(f)]
    
    # Write to Excel file
    workbook = openpyxl.workbook.Workbook()
    worksheet = workbook.active
    for row in csv_data:
        worksheet.append(row)
    workbook.save(excel_filename)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    csv_to_excel("my_file.csv", "my_file.xlsx")

This is a bit more fine-granular approach and it allows you to modify each row in the code or even write additional details into the Excel worksheet.

More Python CSV Conversions

🐍 Learn More: I have compiled an “ultimate guide” on the Finxter blog that shows you the best method, respectively, to convert a CSV file to JSON, Excel, dictionary, Parquet, list, list of lists, list of tuples, text file, DataFrame, XML, NumPy array, and list of dictionaries.

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