Question

Hi. I’m using xlwt package with Python to make an application that writes to excel files.

I have a function that returns the desired width of a cell so i can make the cell big enough to fit the text. However, my function breaks down when i’m writing text that’s in uppercase, as it then returns a width that is far smaller than the actual text.

I don’t know what’s the problem. Any advice would be much appreciated.

def getWidth(self, num_characters):
    """ Returns the approximate width of a cell. """
    return int((1+num_characters) * 256)

Answer 1

All you’re doing with the getWidth function is guessing how much space you’re going to need. The reason you’re guessing is because each letter takes a different amount of space (“iiiii” takes up less room than “mmmmm”). Obviously, capital letters will take up more space.

There are two simple (but not perfect) fixes to this problem:

1. Increase the width per character for all cells. This would mean modifying the value 256 in your function. I would say increasing it by 50% would probably fix your problem.
2. Make everything that you’re inserting into the cells lowercase before insertion.

The code for option 1 would be pretty similar to what you have already:

def getWidth(self, num_characters):
    """ Returns the approximate width of a cell. """
    return int((1+num_characters) * 384)

The code for option 2 would involve calling the lower method on your string before inserting. It would look something like this:

my_cell_value = "THIS IS ALL CAPS!"
my_worksheet.write(1,1,my_cell_value.lower())