Today marks the release of the first version of xlSlim, my new Excel add-in to call Python functions from Excel.
There are existing products, both free and commercial, that integrate Excel and Python, however I believe xlSlim offers some compelling advantages. The biggest advantage is the simplicity, if you are already writing modern Python code then you won't need to make any code changes at all. This is far easier than other products that require additional packages to be installed and functions to be tagged with custom decorators. xlSlim is also really fast as it uses the very old XLOPER-based Excel interfaces.
I have tried to write useful documentation at xlSlim Docs. Please let me know if you have any feedback on the docs, email me at info@xlslim.com
I have chosen to make the core functionality within xlSlim available for free. This is a small way of paying back the many years over which I have benefitted from open source projects in my career. xlSlim itself would not have been possible without the wonderful work of Govert van Drimmelen who has led the excellent Excel-DNA project for many years (https://github.com/Excel-DNA/ExcelDna). I would also like to acknowledge my debt to the team behind the Python for .NET project (https://github.com/pythonnet/pythonnet). Finally, I am of course eternally indebted to the broader Python community (https://www.python.org/). I started working with Python 1.5.2 back in 2000, it is amazing how the language and community have grown since then.
xlSlim is available to download at https://www.xlslim.com/pages/downloads You will automatically get a 14 day trial license that enables all the premium features.
Please give it a try and let me know your feedback in the comments.