How do I get started with PyWin32

Question

I am looking for good resources to get started with pywin32. I haven’t found much in the way of tutorials, books or blogs that talk about it. I’d like to be able to use python to automate some of my common repetitive Microsoft Excel and Word Tasks (such as open a word doc and search and replace data from a spreadsheet).

I have found a lot of references to PyWin32 (on google and StackOverflow), but it’s always at a more advanced level. I’d just like to find some well documented resources that help me get up to speed so I can use the other posts I found.

Solution

What I can recommend if you are okay with buying a book is this guide.

The documentation(can also be found in the installation of PyWin32) and Active State's doc(with their list of objects and modules) should do the rest.

Comments

[Aya]

Well, there is a book published by the primary author of PyWin32 (Mark Hammond) which covers the PyWin32 extensions, but it might be a little out-of-date.

[B-Rell]

Thank you, the book you mention was printed in 2000. The Python version is dated. I have struggled through many Python 2.6 tutorials while using Python 3.3 to learn. This book was more difficult than helpful since I'm still fairly a noob at Python.

[hellerve]

Sorry for a rather off-topic comment, but as you call yourself a noob may I suggest to read this? It's a good guide to readability and code of conduct in Python.

[ivan_pozdeev]

Asking for tutorials is off-topic here. For starters, PyWin32 has some supplemental materials on more obscure topics like COM. In all other regards, it's just another set of modules, complete with documentation, with MSDN to back it about the underlying API.

[B-Rell]

Thank you for the reference to the Active State doc. I have looked at that book previously. As it was published in 2000, the python version used is very old. I contacted the publisher to see if they had an updated version planned. They said there was nothing scheduled. I also tried to work my way through the PyWin32 documentation, but it's not very beginner friendly (more of a reference for users than a beginner how-to).

[hellerve]

That is true I guess, but I fear that PyWin32 is not documented very well. I do not know of any better overall tutorials, there are a lot of answers to specific questions out there. YOu'll have to work your way through all of that. If youre familiar with WinAPI it should be a-okay.

[B-Rell]

Thanks. Unfortunately, I'm not very familiar with WinAPI. I'm not a programmer by occupation, I'm learning Python to make my life at work easier. I was really hoping there was an active blog or other resource that had info for beginners that want to integrate Python and Microsoft Office using PyWin32. I've been looking around for a new user resource for a month now without much luck. Maybe it's more complicated than I'm ready for.

[hellerve]

PyWin32 is definitely something you could partially base a living on if you're good at it(though that's worth a discussion).

[B-Rell]

Thanks to your comment above regarding WinAPI, I've found a new line of approach. I've found some answers on Stackoverflow and Google when searching how to use WinAPI and python. Although not what I was originally looking for, it definitely pointed me in the right direction. I'm going to mark your answer a accepted and post any resources I've found below in my own answer. Thanks!

[B-Rell]

let us continue this discussion in chat