I am using xls2csv.py from the module pyExcelerator in python but there appears to be a bug in it.
http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread144178.html
#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: windows-1251 -*-
# Copyright (C) 2005 Kiseliov Roman
__rev_id__ = """$Id: xls2csv.py,v 1.1 2005/05/19 09:27:42 rvk Exp $"""
from pyExcelerator import *
import sys
me, args = sys.argv[0], sys.argv[1:]
if args:
for arg in args:
print >>sys.stderr, 'extracting data from', arg
for sheet_name, values in parse_xls(arg, 'cp1251'): # parse_xls(arg) -- default encoding
matrix = [[]]
print 'Sheet = "%s"' % sheet_name.encode('cp866', 'backslashreplace')
print '----------------'
for row_idx, col_idx in sorted(values.keys()):
v = values[(row_idx, col_idx)]
if isinstance(v, unicode):
v = v.encode('cp866', 'backslashreplace')
else:
v = str(v)
last_row, last_col = len(matrix), len(matrix[-1])
while last_row < row_idx:
matrix.extend([[]])
last_row = len(matrix)
while last_col < col_idx:
matrix[-1].extend([''])
last_col = len(matrix[-1])
matrix[-1].extend([v])
for row in matrix:
csv_row = ','.join(row)
print csv_row
else:
print 'usage: %s (inputfile)+' % meIt doens't print out a newline on line two for some strange reason.