How to translate a excel file to another language using python while retaining the format

Question

I have a bunch of excel file that I need to translate in to English so I tried to create a python program to do it since I found limitation with Translate My Sheet . I managed to read and translate each cell using xlrd and googletrans, but I run in to a problem where I can't write back to the original file with xlwt.

The code that I managed to come up with

import xlrd
import xlwt
from xlwt import Workbook
from googletrans import Translator

translator =Translator()

location = (r'test.xlsx')

#Writing to file
wb_w = Workbook()
sheet1 = wb_w.add_sheet('sheet 1')
#Reading file
wb_r = xlrd.open_workbook(location)
sheet = wb_r.sheet_by_index(0)
sheet.cell_value(0,0)

#Going through each cell to translate and rewriting
for column in range(sheet.nrows):
    for row in range(sheet.ncols):
        print(sheet.cell_value(column, row))
        sheet1.write(column, row, translator.translate(sheet.cell_value(column, row), dest='en').text)

wb_w.save(r'test.xlsx')

This is the error I'm getting

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:/Users/bobi_/PycharmProjects/Translator/Translator.py", line 22, in <module>
    sheet1.write(column, row, translator.translate(sheet.cell_value(column, row), dest='en').text)
  File "C:\Users\bobi_\PycharmProjects\Translator\venv\lib\site-packages\googletrans\client.py", line 182, in translate
    data = self._translate(text, dest, src, kwargs)
  File "C:\Users\bobi_\PycharmProjects\Translator\venv\lib\site-packages\googletrans\client.py", line 78, in _translate
    token = self.token_acquirer.do(text)
  File "C:\Users\bobi_\PycharmProjects\Translator\venv\lib\site-packages\googletrans\gtoken.py", line 195, in do
    tk = self.acquire(text)
  File "C:\Users\bobi_\PycharmProjects\Translator\venv\lib\site-packages\googletrans\gtoken.py", line 140, in acquire
    for i in text:
TypeError: 'float' object is not iterable

Thanks for the help

Answer 1

Based on your error we can see the problem is on the translation, not the xlwt or xlrd. The problem is that the translate function expects a string, not a number. The sheet.cell_value(...) will return a float if the cell value is a number. My guess is that you only tested the translate function only for cells that contain texts.

You can either do one of these things:

1. Check the type of the value. Translate only if the type is a string.

for column in range(sheet.nrows):
    for row in range(sheet.ncols):
        value = sh.cell_value(column, row)
        if type(value) == str:
            value = translate.translate(value, dest='en').text
        sheet1.write(column, row, value)

2. Or you can convert the value to a string first, then translate it.

value = str(sh.cell_value(column, row))
translated = translate.translate(value, dest='en').text
sheet1.write(column, row, translated)

You need to try both methods and see which works out the best for you.

---

You might want to change the output file with another name. In the code you pasted you load the original file "test.xlsx" and write the translated file also to "test.xlsx". I don't know whether this will work, but if it does you will lose your original file.

By the way, as I have tested xlwt doesn't support .xlsx format ( see an example here ). You either have to write it to an .xls file or you have to look for other modules that support .xlsx .