Pandas.read_excel reads date into timestamp, I want a string

Question

I read a large Excel file into pandas using .read_excel, and the file has date columns. When read into pandas, the dates default to a timestamp. Since the file is large, I would like to read the dates as a string.

If that is not possible, then I would at least like to export the date back to Excel in the same format as it is in the original file (e.g. "8/18/2009").

My two questions are:

1. Can I avoid converting the Excel date into a timestamp in pandas?
2. If not possible, how can I write back the date in the original format efficiently?

Answer 1

this is similar as issue here. Leave dates as strings using read_excel function from pandas in python

check the answers:

• Using converters{'Date': str} option inside the pandas.read_excel which helps.
  pandas.read_excel(xlsx, sheet, converters={'Date': str})
• you can try convert your timestamp back to the original format
  df['Date'][0].strftime('%Y/%m/%d')