Python XlsxWriter - Defined Names

In Excel, it is possible to identify a cell, a formula, or a range of cells by user-defined name, which can be used as a variable used to make the definition of formula easy to understand. This can be achieved using the define_name() method of the Workbook class.

In the following code snippet, we have a range of cells consisting of numbers. This range has been given a name as marks.

data=['marks',50,60,70, 'Total']
ws.write_row('A1', data)
wb.define_name('marks', '=Sheet1!$A$1:$E$1')

If the name is assigned to a range of cells, the second argument of define_name() method is a string with the name of the sheet followed by "!" symbol and then the range of cells using the absolute addressing scheme. In this case, the range A1:E1 in sheet1 is named as marks.

This name can be used in any formula. For example, we calculate the sum of numbers in the range identified by the name marks.

ws.write('F1', '=sum(marks)')

We can also use the named cell in the write_formula() method. In the following code, this method is used to calculate interest on the amount where the rate is a defined_name.

ws.write('B5', 10)
wb.define_name('rate', '=sheet1!$B$5')

ws.write_row('A5', ['Rate', 10])

data=['Amount',1000, 2000, 3000]
ws.write_column('A6', data)
ws.write('B6', 'Interest')
for row in range(6,9):
   ws.write_formula(row, 1, '= rate*$A{}/100'.format(row+1))

We can also use write_array_formula() method instead of the loop in the above code −

ws.write_array_formula('D7:D9' , '{=rate/100*(A7:A9)}')

Example

The complete code using define_name() method is given below −

import xlsxwriter

wb = xlsxwriter.Workbook('ex2.xlsx')
ws = wb.add_worksheet()

data = ['marks',50,60,70, 'Total']
ws.write_row('A1', data)
wb.define_name('marks', '=Sheet1!$A$1:$E$1')
ws.write('F1', '=sum(marks)')

ws.write('B5', 10)
wb.define_name('rate', '=sheet1!$B$5')

ws.write_row('A5', ['Rate', 10])

data=['Amount',1000, 2000, 3000]
ws.write_column('A6', data)
ws.write('B6', 'Interest')

for row in range(6,9):
   ws.write_formula(row, 1, '= rate*$A{}/100'.format(row+1))
   
wb.close()

Output

Run the above program and open ex2.xlsx with Excel.

Ex2 Xlsx
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