---
name: "runxlrd"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "python3-xlrd"
version: "2.0.1-2"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/runxlrd"
---

# runxlrd(1)

extract data from Microsoft Excel spreadsheet files

## NAME

runxlrd - extract data from Microsoft Excel spreadsheet files

## SYNOPSIS

**runxlrd \[***options***\]** *command* **\[***input-file-patterns***\]**

## DESCRIPTION

This manual page documents briefly the **runxlrd** command.

**runxlrd** offers a commandline interface to the Python xlrd module; it extracts data from Microsoft Excel spreadsheet files. For a complete list of options and commands, run **runxlrd** with **--help** arguments.

## OPTIONS

- **-h**, **--help**

  Show summary of options and exit.

- **-l** *logfilename*

  Contains error messages.

- **-v** *verbosity*, **--verbosity**=*verbosity*

  Level of information and diagnostics provided.

- **-m** *mmap*, **--mmap**=*mmap*

  1: use mmap; 0: don't use mmap; -1: accept heuristic.

- **-e** *encoding*, **--encoding**=*encoding*

  Encoding override.

- **-f** *formatting*, **--formatting**=*formatting*

  0 (default): no fmt info 1: fmt info (all cells) 2: fmt info (margins trimmed).

- **-g** *gc*, **--gc=gc**

  0: auto gc enabled; 1: auto gc disabled, manual collect after each file; 2: no gc.

- **-s** *onesheet*, **--onesheet**=*onesheet*

  Restrict output to this sheet (name or index).

## COMMANDS

Main commands are

- •

  **2rows**

- •

  **3rows**

- •

  **bench**

- •

  **hdr**

- •

  **labels**

- •

  **names**

- •

  **ov**

- •

  **show**

- •

  **version**

- •

  **xfc**

See the xlrd API documentation for the meaning of these commands.

## EXAMPLES

To show the first, second and last rows of each sheet in each file, run

**$ runxlrd 3rows \*blah\*.xls**

Run

**$ runxlrd -e koi8\_r 3rows myfile.xls**

to explicitly pass the needed codepage to xlrd, e.g. if the codepage record is missing, or if it exists but is wrong.

## SEE ALSO

The xlrd API documentation, shipped in the file xlrd.html.\
 The xlrd website ⟨URL: http://www.python-excel.org ⟩.

## AUTHOR

runxlrd was written by John Machin.

This manual page was written by Joost van Baal \<joostvb+debian@uvt.nl\>, for the Debian project (but may be used by others).