XlsxWriter object save as http response to create download in Django

A little update on @alecxe response for Python 3 (io.BytesIO instead of StringIO.StringIO) and Django >= 1.5 (content_type instead of mimetype), with the fully in-memory file assembly that has since been implemented by @jmcnamara ({‘in_memory’: True}) !
Here is the full example :

import io

from django.http.response import HttpResponse

from xlsxwriter.workbook import Workbook


def your_view(request):

    output = io.BytesIO()

    workbook = Workbook(output, {'in_memory': True})
    worksheet = workbook.add_worksheet()
    worksheet.write(0, 0, 'Hello, world!')
    workbook.close()

    output.seek(0)

    response = HttpResponse(output.read(), content_type="application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet")
    response['Content-Disposition'] = "attachment; filename=test.xlsx"

    output.close()

    return response

When it comes to Django, you can even do without the whole StringIO shenanigans. HttpResponse behaves just like a StringIO in that respect:

from django.http import HttpResponse
from xlsxwriter.workbook import Workbook

def your_view(request):
    # your view logic here

    # create the HttpResponse object ...
    response = HttpResponse(content_type='application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet')
    response['Content-Disposition'] = "attachment; filename=test.xlsx"

    # .. and pass it into the XLSXWriter
    book = Workbook(response, {'in_memory': True})
    sheet = book.add_worksheet('test')       
    sheet.write(0, 0, 'Hello, world!')
    book.close()

    return response

Addendum: You need to specify {'in_memory': True} or you might get HttpResponse has no attribute seek(). Thanks @Jeb

It’s better to follow the official doc from jmcnamara (package developer)

Example: Simple Django class

A simple Django View class to write an Excel file using the XlsxWriter module.

import io
from django.http import HttpResponse
from django.views.generic import View
import xlsxwriter


def get_simple_table_data():
    # Simulate a more complex table read.
    return [[1, 2, 3],
            [4, 5, 6],
            [7, 8, 9]]


class MyView(View):

    def get(self, request):

        # Create an in-memory output file for the new workbook.
        output = io.BytesIO()

        # Even though the final file will be in memory the module uses temp
        # files during assembly for efficiency. To avoid this on servers that
        # don't allow temp files, for example the Google APP Engine, set the
        # 'in_memory' Workbook() constructor option as shown in the docs.
        workbook = xlsxwriter.Workbook(output)
        worksheet = workbook.add_worksheet()

        # Get some data to write to the spreadsheet.
        data = get_simple_table_data()

        # Write some test data.
        for row_num, columns in enumerate(data):
            for col_num, cell_data in enumerate(columns):
                worksheet.write(row_num, col_num, cell_data)

        # Close the workbook before sending the data.
        workbook.close()

        # Rewind the buffer.
        output.seek(0)

        # Set up the Http response.
        filename = 'django_simple.xlsx'
        response = HttpResponse(
            output,
            content_type='application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet'
        )
        response['Content-Disposition'] = 'attachment; filename=%s' % filename

        return response

I use nodejs with reportProgress: True. My Django code is like this;

output = io.BytesIO()
workbook = xlsxwriter.Workbook(output, {'in_memory': True})
worksheet = workbook.add_worksheet()

worksheet.write(y, x, column_name)
worksheet.write(y, x, column_name)

workbook.close()
output.seek(0)
return FileResponse(output.read(), filename="reservations.xlsx")

If you do this then you can use like this