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Use the excellent xlrd package, which works on any platform. That means you can read Excel files from Python in Linux! Example usage:

Open the workbook

import xlrd
wb = xlrd.open_workbook('myworkbook.xls')

Check the sheet names

wb.sheet_names()

Get the first sheet either by index or by name

sh = wb.sheet_by_index(0)
sh = wb.sheet_by_name(u'Sheet1')

Iterate through rows, returning each as a list that you can index:

for rownum in range(sh.nrows):
    print sh.row_values(rownum)

If you just want the first column:

first_column = sh.col_values(0)

Index individual cells:

cell_A1 = sh.cell(0,0).value
cell_C4 = sh.cell(rowx=3,colx=2).value

(Note Python indices start at zero but Excel starts at one)

Turns out the put_cell() method isn’t supported, so ignore the following section (Thanks for the heads up, John!)

Put something in the cell:

row = 0
col = 0
ctype = 1  # see below
value = 'asdf'
xf = 0  # extended formatting (use 0 to use default)
sh.put_cell(row, col, ctype, value, xf)
sh.cell(0,0)  # text:u'asdf'
sh.cell(0,0).value  # 'asdf'

Possible ctypes: 0 = empty, 1 = string, 2 = number, 3 = date, 4 = boolean, 5 = error