I am starting to use XLWings (not that I like Excel, at all, but it is something I HAVE TO do). The thing is that I cannot find the way to make Python open a Workbook without showing it.

It seems the constructor for Workbooks in the old XLWings 0.6.4 was xlwings.Workbook, and one of the arguments was a flag 'app_visible' (see http://docs.xlwings.org/en/v0.6.4/api.html).

However, in the new v0.9.2 Workbook has been replaced by Book, and Book does not have any such flag (http://docs.xlwings.org/en/stable/api.html). The App object does have it, and I thought that was the way to go. So I coded:

import xlwings as xw

app = xw.App(visible=False)
filename = os.path.join(PATH_EXCEL_SAMPLES, r"rangosConDatos_sample01.xls")
book = xw.Book(filename)
# Do stuff with the info in the book
book.close()  # Ya puedo cerrar el libro.
app.kill()

But, regretably, when

book = xw.Book(filename)

is executed the 'visible' attribute of app suddenly becomes True, and the book is shown. I do not know if this is a desired feature or an unexpected behaviour. Anyway, any ideas how should I do it?

Since version 0.24.3, where with xw.App is implemented, the idiomatic way is:

import xlwings as xw

with xw.App(visible=False) as app:
    book = xw.Book("test.xlsx")

    # Do some stuff e.g.
    book.sheets[0]["A1"].value = 12345

    book.save("test.xlsx")
    book.close()

The advantage of this is that there won't be any hidden excel processes left over in the background, if you use a hidden instance and your code fails.