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Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

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Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#191

Post by nprateem »

gpjt wrote: post #179
nprateem wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, making python a first-class browser scripting language to displace JS. I think we all know it's time. Even if it takes a decade for ubiquity, it'll be worth it.

Definitely check out PyScript if you haven't already. It works pretty well and is being actively developed. (Full disclosure: I work for Anaconda, which is the primary developer.)

That's cool, thanks for sharing. I've only ever seen things that required transpilation and had complex toolchains. I hope it catches on

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#192

Post by mritchie712 »

gpjt wrote: post #100

Back in 2005, some friends and I started a company called Resolver Systems to build a Python-enabled spreadsheet, which we called Resolver One. Sadly, it never took off in the marketplace, and we had to pivot; we would up creating PythonAnywhere, an online coding and hosting environment, which worked out pretty well and was acquired by Anaconda last year. And now, the circle is closed :-) (Just for clarity: the team…

I built my first app on PythonAnywhere! I've had stuff running on there for almost a decade now. I loved being able to make small tweaks to the app directly in the PythonAnywhere web app. Such a great product. Really missed stuff like that when I started using GCP/AWS.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#193

Post by xorcist »

nologic01 wrote: post #35

I wish Libreoffice would have smelled the coffee long time ago. In principle scripting using Python is possible but exceedingly cumbersome/ugly and there seems to be no roadmap to improve on this. The same warning applies to the linux desktop and all its apps more generally. Increasingly proprietary platforms will be rolling out advanced "AI" functionality extensions to classic apps that are cloud based, many of them…

Umm... Libreoffice has shipped with Python scripting since almost forever.

Not many people care because the most popular use case of any office suite is to interoperate with Microsoft file formats.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#194

Post by pessimizer »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #24

Wait just a moment. Libreoffice had python for years, but nobody cared and instead complained about needing 100% compatible VBA for "real work". Where are those people now?

Right here. It's also not about 100% compatible VBA, it's about learning an entirely new API in order to write VBA-backed Excel spreadsheets that won't run in Excel. If Libreoffice VBA were compatible with Office VBA, I'd have no reason to always keep an outdated Windows system in the closet somewhere.

The reason we're doing this is to make money, and nobody wants to buy Excel spreadsheets that don't run in Excel.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#195

Post by dragonwriter »

sixothree wrote: post #91
john-radio wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scientific notation ("2.02308E+13") is just how Excel displays a large enough numeric value like your example; it's not doing any conversion, as you can see if you paste that number into Excel, confirm that it's showing the scientific notation, and then click into the cell to confirm that the formula bar still shows the original number (20230822090811). If you paste your date string in a more standard date format…

Do you _really_ think I've spent the past 10 years getting files like this and I still don't understand the reason. I didn't ask for an explanation. I asked for a fix. What are you doing here?? I can provide instructions on how to do this until the cows come home. I will still get files with these issues. Is that not obvious? Do you really think I want to examine _tens of thousands of rows_ in documents that are 100…

> Do you _really_ think I've spent the past 10 years getting files like this and I still don't understand the reason. I didn't ask for an explanation. I asked for a fix.

I don’t believe you’ve been doing it that long and haven't found the fix.

Apply appropriate formatting if you have long strings of numeric digits [as long as they can’t have leading zeroes] that you want stored as numbers but displayed without scientific notation. (Not the best choice for what is semantically a date, in your case, but...that’s a whole bigger issue and, well, babysteps.) You don't have to look at anything, just do it for the ranges where that is the kind of data:

https://help.godatafeed.com/hc/en-us/articles/360049916591-H...

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#196

Post by dragonwriter »

mulmen wrote: post #128
DandyDev wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My my, why so angry? You're expecting something that Excel doesn't support for good reason. The string you used as an example might be a date string to YOU, but to Excel and many of its users it's just a large integer. Lots of regular use cases would break if Excel would interpret that string as a datwle If you want Excel to interpret strings as dates, use a more common date representation such as iso8601

It’s one of the most infuriating and dangerous behaviors I have ever encountered. Excel silently truncates data . The anger is warranted. The problem isn’t assuming a display format for data, it is that a poor assumption actually mangles data. Excel doesn’t fail safe. Numbers in Excel only maintain 15 digits of precision. Leading zeros are also truncated . If you haven’t experienced this you are lucky (or just didn’t…

> It’s one of the most infuriating and dangerous behaviors I have ever encountered. Excel silently truncates data.

That's a problem, sure, but not the one sixothree is complaining about.

> The problem isn’t assuming a display format for data

Your problem might not be, but that’s exactly the problem sixothree is complaining about that the post you are responding to addresses, so while your post references a valid complaint, it is a complete non-sequitur as a response.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#197

Post by hospitalJail »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #109

I was so excited about Python in Excel, until it said "run in the cloud." There just doesn't seem to be any reason for this except to tie you into their cloud service. It feels so much like protecting me from unsafe printer ink. I'm generally a fan of MS Office products and try to give them the benefit of the doubt. Please help me think of a plausibly good reason for requiring Python to run in the cloud, that is not…

These are red flags. M$ is forcing people into their cloud. Their hijacking of your local file system with onedrive is a great example that many people already ran into.

I think we are about 5 years overdue from bailing from M$. They need to be avoided. Every product from Windows to Office already has anti-consumer features.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#198

Post by pessimizer »

kaashif wrote: post #107
walthamstow wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree but expect that Excel will be the very last app of the suite that they make web-only. Excel heads like my wife absolutely hate the web version.

A lot of people in finance are Excel heads and hate the web version. And they have a lot of money to throw around, surely Microsoft cares about them. I really don't see them killing the desktop version.

I could see the prices going up to Bloomberg-terminal level, though, and everybody normal having to settle for Excel 365.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#199

Post by dragonwriter »

twobitshifter wrote: post #120
sixothree wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you just please fix the issue with date strings (such as "20230822090811") being converted into scientific notation? I've received literally hundreds of these documents over the past decade. And as long as this problem exists, I will keep receiving them. Can you please just add a button - "unmess this document"? The number of man-hours I've wasted re-creating documents is countless. My job is to do other things n…

The way you fix this is using the text import tool or better yet power query and specifying the column type to be text. With power query you can repeat this for as many files as you need to import.

If he's recieving excel files with this issue from other people, the text import tool isn’t a solution and Power Query is a bit circuitous to solve what can be addressed by formatting the range with this kind of data.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#200

Post by pessimizer »

csdvrx wrote: post #159
walthamstow wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree but expect that Excel will be the very last app of the suite that they make web-only. Excel heads like my wife absolutely hate the web version.

> Excel heads like my wife absolutely hate the web version. Have her try Excel 2010 or 2007 running on Wine (whether using WSL or natively) For people who want their spreadsheet offline, it's wonderful: fast and stable.

This is good news. I did not know this.
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