[python] How to write to an existing excel file without overwriting data (using pandas)?

I use pandas to write to excel file in the following fashion:

import pandas

writer = pandas.ExcelWriter('Masterfile.xlsx') 

data_filtered.to_excel(writer, "Main", cols=['Diff1', 'Diff2'])

writer.save()

Masterfile.xlsx already consists of number of different tabs. However, it does not yet contain "Main".

Pandas correctly writes to "Main" sheet, unfortunately it also deletes all other tabs.

There is a better solution in pandas 0.24:

with pd.ExcelWriter(path, mode='a') as writer:
    s.to_excel(writer, sheet_name='another sheet', index=False)

before:

after:

so upgrade your pandas now:

pip install --upgrade pandas

Old question, but I am guessing some people still search for this - so...

I find this method nice because all worksheets are loaded into a dictionary of sheet name and dataframe pairs, created by pandas with the sheetname=None option. It is simple to add, delete or modify worksheets between reading the spreadsheet into the dict format and writing it back from the dict. For me the xlsxwriter works better than openpyxl for this particular task in terms of speed and format.

Note: future versions of pandas (0.21.0+) will change the "sheetname" parameter to "sheet_name".

# read a single or multi-sheet excel file
# (returns dict of sheetname(s), dataframe(s))
ws_dict = pd.read_excel(excel_file_path,
                        sheetname=None)

# all worksheets are accessible as dataframes.

# easy to change a worksheet as a dataframe:
mod_df = ws_dict['existing_worksheet']

# do work on mod_df...then reassign
ws_dict['existing_worksheet'] = mod_df

# add a dataframe to the workbook as a new worksheet with
# ws name, df as dict key, value:
ws_dict['new_worksheet'] = some_other_dataframe

# when done, write dictionary back to excel...
# xlsxwriter honors datetime and date formats
# (only included as example)...
with pd.ExcelWriter(excel_file_path,
                    engine='xlsxwriter',
                    datetime_format='yyyy-mm-dd',
                    date_format='yyyy-mm-dd') as writer:

    for ws_name, df_sheet in ws_dict.items():
        df_sheet.to_excel(writer, sheet_name=ws_name)

For the example in the 2013 question:

ws_dict = pd.read_excel('Masterfile.xlsx',
                        sheetname=None)

ws_dict['Main'] = data_filtered[['Diff1', 'Diff2']]

with pd.ExcelWriter('Masterfile.xlsx',
                    engine='xlsxwriter') as writer:

    for ws_name, df_sheet in ws_dict.items():
        df_sheet.to_excel(writer, sheet_name=ws_name)

Solution by @MaxU worked very well. I have just one suggestion:

If truncate_sheet=True is specified than "startrow" should NOT be retained from existing sheet. I suggest:

        if startrow is None and sheet_name in writer.book.sheetnames:
            if not truncate_sheet: # truncate_sheet would use startrow if provided (or zero below)
                startrow = writer.book[sheet_name].max_row

writer = pd.ExcelWriter('prueba1.xlsx'engine='openpyxl',keep_date_col=True)

The "keep_date_col" hope help you

Here is a helper function:

def append_df_to_excel(filename, df, sheet_name='Sheet1', startrow=None,
                       truncate_sheet=False, 
                       **to_excel_kwargs):
    """
    Append a DataFrame [df] to existing Excel file [filename]
    into [sheet_name] Sheet.
    If [filename] doesn't exist, then this function will create it.

    Parameters:
      filename : File path or existing ExcelWriter
                 (Example: '/path/to/file.xlsx')
      df : dataframe to save to workbook
      sheet_name : Name of sheet which will contain DataFrame.
                   (default: 'Sheet1')
      startrow : upper left cell row to dump data frame.
                 Per default (startrow=None) calculate the last row
                 in the existing DF and write to the next row...
      truncate_sheet : truncate (remove and recreate) [sheet_name]
                       before writing DataFrame to Excel file
      to_excel_kwargs : arguments which will be passed to `DataFrame.to_excel()`
                        [can be dictionary]

    Returns: None

    (c) [MaxU](https://stackoverflow.com/users/5741205/maxu?tab=profile)
    """
    from openpyxl import load_workbook

    # ignore [engine] parameter if it was passed
    if 'engine' in to_excel_kwargs:
        to_excel_kwargs.pop('engine')

    writer = pd.ExcelWriter(filename, engine='openpyxl')

    # Python 2.x: define [FileNotFoundError] exception if it doesn't exist 
    try:
        FileNotFoundError
    except NameError:
        FileNotFoundError = IOError


    try:
        # try to open an existing workbook
        writer.book = load_workbook(filename)
        
        # get the last row in the existing Excel sheet
        # if it was not specified explicitly
        if startrow is None and sheet_name in writer.book.sheetnames:
            startrow = writer.book[sheet_name].max_row

        # truncate sheet
        if truncate_sheet and sheet_name in writer.book.sheetnames:
            # index of [sheet_name] sheet
            idx = writer.book.sheetnames.index(sheet_name)
            # remove [sheet_name]
            writer.book.remove(writer.book.worksheets[idx])
            # create an empty sheet [sheet_name] using old index
            writer.book.create_sheet(sheet_name, idx)
        
        # copy existing sheets
        writer.sheets = {ws.title:ws for ws in writer.book.worksheets}
    except FileNotFoundError:
        # file does not exist yet, we will create it
        pass

    if startrow is None:
        startrow = 0

    # write out the new sheet
    df.to_excel(writer, sheet_name, startrow=startrow, **to_excel_kwargs)

    # save the workbook
    writer.save()
            

NOTE: for Pandas < 0.21.0, replace sheet_name with sheetname!

Usage examples:

append_df_to_excel('d:/temp/test.xlsx', df)

append_df_to_excel('d:/temp/test.xlsx', df, header=None, index=False)

append_df_to_excel('d:/temp/test.xlsx', df, sheet_name='Sheet2', index=False)

append_df_to_excel('d:/temp/test.xlsx', df, sheet_name='Sheet2', index=False, startrow=25)

def append_sheet_to_master(self, master_file_path, current_file_path, sheet_name):
    try:
        master_book = load_workbook(master_file_path)
        master_writer = pandas.ExcelWriter(master_file_path, engine='openpyxl')
        master_writer.book = master_book
        master_writer.sheets = dict((ws.title, ws) for ws in master_book.worksheets)
        current_frames = pandas.ExcelFile(current_file_path).parse(pandas.ExcelFile(current_file_path).sheet_names[0],
                                                               header=None,
                                                               index_col=None)
        current_frames.to_excel(master_writer, sheet_name, index=None, header=False)

        master_writer.save()
    except Exception as e:
        raise e

This works perfectly fine only thing is that formatting of the master file(file to which we add new sheet) is lost.

I know this is an older thread, but this is the first item you find when searching, and the above solutions don't work if you need to retain charts in a workbook that you already have created. In that case, xlwings is a better option - it allows you to write to the excel book and keeps the charts/chart data.

simple example:

import xlwings as xw
import pandas as pd

#create DF
months = ['2017-01','2017-02','2017-03','2017-04','2017-05','2017-06','2017-07','2017-08','2017-09','2017-10','2017-11','2017-12']
value1 = [x * 5+5 for x in range(len(months))]
df = pd.DataFrame(value1, index = months, columns = ['value1'])
df['value2'] = df['value1']+5
df['value3'] = df['value2']+5

#load workbook that has a chart in it
wb = xw.Book('C:\\data\\bookwithChart.xlsx')

ws = wb.sheets['chartData']

ws.range('A1').options(index=False).value = df

wb = xw.Book('C:\\data\\bookwithChart_updated.xlsx')

xw.apps[0].quit()

book = load_workbook(xlsFilename)
writer = pd.ExcelWriter(self.xlsFilename)
writer.book = book
writer.sheets = dict((ws.title, ws) for ws in book.worksheets)
df.to_excel(writer, sheet_name=sheetName, index=False)
writer.save()

Method:

• Can create file if not present
• Append to existing excel as per sheet name

import pandas as pd
from openpyxl import load_workbook

def write_to_excel(df, file):
    try:
        book = load_workbook(file)
        writer = pd.ExcelWriter(file, engine='openpyxl') 
        writer.book = book
        writer.sheets = dict((ws.title, ws) for ws in book.worksheets)
        df.to_excel(writer, **kwds)
        writer.save()
    except FileNotFoundError as e:
        df.to_excel(file, **kwds)

Usage:

df_a = pd.DataFrame(range(10), columns=["a"])
df_b = pd.DataFrame(range(10, 20), columns=["b"])
write_to_excel(df_a, "test.xlsx", sheet_name="Sheet a", columns=['a'], index=False)
write_to_excel(df_b, "test.xlsx", sheet_name="Sheet b", columns=['b'])

Starting in pandas 0.24 you can simplify this with the mode keyword argument of ExcelWriter:

import pandas as pd

with pd.ExcelWriter('the_file.xlsx', engine='openpyxl', mode='a') as writer: 
     data_filtered.to_excel(writer) 

With openpyxlversion 2.4.0 and pandasversion 0.19.2, the process @ski came up with gets a bit simpler:

import pandas
from openpyxl import load_workbook

with pandas.ExcelWriter('Masterfile.xlsx', engine='openpyxl') as writer:
    writer.book = load_workbook('Masterfile.xlsx')
    data_filtered.to_excel(writer, "Main", cols=['Diff1', 'Diff2'])
#That's it!