How can I launch an instance of an application using Python?

python scripting ipc
Ray picture Ray · Oct 29, 2008 · Viewed 49.9k times · Source

I am creating a Python script where it does a bunch of tasks and one of those tasks is to launch and open an instance of Excel. What is the ideal way of accomplishing that in my script?

Answer

Ali Afshar picture Ali Afshar · Oct 29, 2008

While the Popen answers are reasonable for the general case, I would recommend win32api for this specific case, if you want to do something useful with it:

It goes something like this:

from win32com.client import Dispatch
xl = Dispatch('Excel.Application')
wb = xl.Workbooks.Open('C:\\Documents and Settings\\GradeBook.xls')
xl.Visible = True    # optional: if you want to see the spreadsheet

Taken from a mailing list post but there are plenty of examples around.

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