How to password-protect an XLSX file in Python

Question

I want to create an excel file with some data and password-protect the entire file, not just worksheets. I've looked around many places but I haven't found a way without paid libraries like spire.xls package. I couldn't install it for obscure reasons. I'm new in Python so those errors are beyond me. I found that here.

Answer 1

Alright, I got it. Thanks to the people in the comments. What I wanted was to create a file and copy it on some SMB server. The file is XLSX, needs a password to be opened and a sensitivity label.

But as far as this question goes, to password-protect it, I created the file with xlswriter, created a plain handler, then opened an OOXMLFile with the previous handler, encrypted it (which means add a pwd to open it) then closed the original plain file:

import xlsxwriter
from msoffcrypto.format.ooxml import OOXMLFile

wb = xlsxwriter.Workbook(INTERMEDIATE_EXCEL_FILE)
ws = wb.add_worksheet()
ws.write_row('A1', FIELD_NAMES, cell_format=None)
r, c = 1, 0
for row in records:
    ws.write_row(r, c, row)
    r = r + 1
wb.close()
plain = open(INTERMEDIATE_EXCEL_FILE, "rb")
file = OOXMLFile(plain)
with open(EXCEL_FILENAME, "wb") as f:
    file.encrypt(EXCEL_FILE_PASSWORD, f)
plain.close()

I also achieved it with xlwings but it was opening the file asking me for manual setup of the sensitivity label, which is why I ended up using openpyxl to add the label. I smbclient.shutil to copy the file to the shared drive.