Getting Started with xlsxwriter

Here are some easy instructions to get you up and running with the xlsxwriter module.

Installing xlsxwriter

Xlsxwriter is a pure Lua module and doesn’t need a native compiler to install. However, it has a dependency on the ZipWriter module which does have binary dependencies.

These dependencies are handled automatically if you use the luarocks or luadist methods shown below.

Using luarocks

The easiest way to install xlsxwriter is with the luarocks utility:

$ sudo luarocks install xlsxwriter

Using luadist

Another easy “packaged” way of installing xlsxwriter is with the luadist distribution:

$ sudo luadist install xlsxwriter

Cloning from GitHub

The xlsxwriter source code and bug tracker is in the xlsxwriter.lua repository on GitHub. You can clone the repository and install from it as follows:

$ git clone https://github.com/jmcnamara/xlsxwriter.lua.git

$ cd xlsxwriter.lua
$ sudo luarocks make
# or
$ sudo luadist make

Running a sample program

If the installation went correctly you can create a small sample program like the following to verify that the module works correctly:

local Workbook = require "xlsxwriter.workbook"

local workbook  = Workbook:new("hello_world.xlsx")
local worksheet = workbook:add_worksheet()

worksheet:write("A1", "Hello world")

workbook:close()

Save this to a file called hello.lua and run it as follows:

$ lua hello.lua

This will output a file called hello.xlsx which should look something like the following:

_images/hello01.png

If you downloaded a tarball or cloned the repo, as shown above, you should also have a directory called examples with some sample applications that demonstrate different features of xlsxwriter.

Documentation

The latest version of this document is hosted on Read The Docs. It is also available as a PDF.

Once you are happy that the module is installed and operational you can have a look at the rest of the xlsxwriter documentation. Tutorial 1: Create a simple XLSX file is a good place to start.