xlwt does not provide a simple interface for doing this, but I've had success with a somewhat similar problem (inserting multiple copies of a row into a copied workbook) by directly changing the worksheet's rows attribute and the row numbers on the row and cell objects.
The rows
attribute is a dict, indexed on row number, so iterating a row range takes a little care and you can't slice it.
Given the number of rows you want to delete and the initial row number of the first row you want to keep, something like this might work:
rows_indices_to_move = range(first_kept_row, worksheet.last_used_row + 1)
max_used_row = 0
for row_index in rows_indices_to_move:
new_row_number = row_index - number_to_delete
if row_index in worksheet.rows():
row = worksheet.rows[row_index]
row._Row__idx = new_row_number
for cell in row._Row__cells.values():
if cell:
cell.rowx = new_row_number
worksheet.rows[new_row_number] = row
max_used_row = new_row_number
else:
# There's no row in the block we're trying to slide up at this index, but there might be a row already present to clear out.
if new_row_number in worksheet.rows():
del worksheet.rows[new_row_number]
# now delete any remaining rows
del worksheet.rows[new_row_number + 1:]
# and update the internal marker for the last remaining row
if max_used_row:
worksheet.last_used_row = max_used_row
I would believe that there are bugs in that code, it's untested and relies on direct manipulation of the underlying data structures, but it should show the general idea. Modify the row and cell objects and adjust the rows dictionary so that the indices are correct.
Do you have merged ranges in the rows you want to delete, or below them? If so you'll also need to run through the worksheet's merged_ranges attribute and update the rows for them. Also, if you have multiple groups of rows to delete you'll need to adjust this answer - this is specific to the case of having a block of rows to delete and shifting everything below up.
As a side note - I was able to write text to my worksheet and preserve the predefined style thus:
def write_with_style(ws, row, col, value):
if ws.rows[row]._Row__cells[col]:
old_xf_idx = ws.rows[row]._Row__cells[col].xf_idx
ws.write(row, col, value)
ws.rows[row]._Row__cells[col].xf_idx = old_xf_idx
else:
ws.write(row, col, value)
That might let you skip having two copies of your spreadsheet open at once.