Change excel cell number format "General" to "Text", using openpyxl 1.8.6 - openpyxl

Question

How to change excel cell number format General to Text irrespective of data in cell?
I am using openpyxl 1.8.6.

Answer 1

I know this question is really old, but it could still be relevant as I just found it when Googling the same thing. The above will work most of the time, but not in those annoying cases where Excel starts acting like guys I've known in the past, and thinking everything is a date. ;)
I would do it like this:
cell = ws['A1']
cell.number_format = '#'
The '#' is a placeholder that forces text formatting. The docs suggest this works on version 1.8.6, as well as latest release.

Answer 2

Based on #SuperScienceGrl's great answer:
from openpyxl.styles import numbers
cell.number_format = numbers.FORMAT_TEXT
You can see a full list of format at their official readthedocs page

Answer 3

Number formatting applies only to numbers. If you want to change a number to text then you must change the datatype:
ws['A1'] = str(ws['A1'].value)
Version 1.8.6 is no longer supported. You should consider upgrading to a more recent release.

Answer 4

Applying #run_the_race answer to a column:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
from openpyxl import load_workbook
from openpyxl.styles import numbers
xlsx_file = 'file.xlsx'
# openning:
wb = load_workbook(filename = xlsx_file)
# set column O of default sheet to be text:
ws = wb.active
for row in ws[2:ws.max_row]: # skip the header
cell = row[14] # column O
cell.number_format = numbers.FORMAT_TEXT
# saving:
wb.save(xlsx_file)
Same wrapped in a script accepting a column "name", like AA:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
import argparse
from openpyxl import load_workbook
from openpyxl.styles import numbers
# ==============
## parsing args:
desc="""
Converts given column of the xlsx file (default sheet) to a text format.
Dependencies:
pip3 install --user --upgrade openpyxl
"""
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description=desc, formatter_class=argparse.RawDescriptionHelpFormatter)
parser.add_argument('--version', action='version', version='%(prog)s 0.01')
parser.add_argument('-f', '--file',
help = "xlsx file",
dest = 'xlsx_file',
type = argparse.FileType('r'),
)
parser.add_argument('-c', '--column',
help = "column (default to %(default)s)",
dest = 'column',
type = str,
default = "A",
)
args = parser.parse_args()
# =========
## program:
xlsx_file = args.xlsx_file.name
column_number = sum(
[ ord(char) - 97 + i*26 for i,char in enumerate(
list( args.column.lower() )
) ]
)
# openning:
wb = load_workbook(filename = xlsx_file)
# convert given column of the default sheet to a text format:
ws = wb.active
for row in ws[2:ws.max_row]: # skip the header
cell = row[column_number]
cell.number_format = numbers.FORMAT_TEXT
# saving:
wb.save(xlsx_file)