Thanks for checking out this blog, these are techniques I learned in developing better ways to process ERP data. I use Excel 2007, but haven’t experimented much reading and writing to named ranges. My approach would be similar to what I’ve described in other posts: capture what you want to do in a macro, review the VB code and port it to Python.

There is some other work going on with Python and spreadsheets. Check out Resolver Systems ( http://www.resolversystems.com ), they have a spreadsheet program called Resolver One that supports full Python customization. Another post I stumbled upon was ( http://fpgacomputing.blogspot.com/2008/03/python-spreadsheets-like-resolver-only.html ), which describes linking Excel to Python so that you can type Python syntax into an Excel spreadsheet cell and have it executed. You can always Google for Python and Excel ( http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=python+excel ) and see what else is going on. Good luck — Dan

I like your website a lot. I am an expert at using Excel interactively, can somehow write VBA for Excel functions/routines, and I am learning Python, which I can tell you, I like a lot.

I also have to handle quite often big tables of data, although not always coming from SAP.

Since my data tables can be placed in different places on the worksheet, and I usually move them around, I prefer to insert names that identify some ranges, and then I read those ranges.

Perhaps you could write some day about reading and writing to named ranges, in a shot (not cell by cell), giving some directions as to how to deal with vertical sets of data, horizontal ones, rectangular ones, and so on.

With the new table feature of excel 2007 I would also be able to read ranges with headers, write data table with headers, etc.

Handling excel (client) by means of Python (server), which I think is what you do, is very interesting and gives you a lot of calculation power.

However, I would also like, if it is possible, to call Python defs or routines from within excel, by means of, for example, clicking a button. Could you please write on it or direct me to any sites that may deal with this subject?

As you see, I am among those ones that thing that Excel (or Openoffice calc) should be able to run python scripts natively. Perhaps one day, who knows.

If you some day decide to write on these issues, I would appreciate it a lot. If not, thank you for your patience reading this post.

Thanks in advance.