This code is just a wrapper around the xlrd library for reading excel files. I was using xlrd recently and I found the api way too verbose, so this is my solution. Pyxl allows indexing into excel files using Python list and dictionary index notation. Check below for examples.
Note: You will need the xlrd library to run this code. xlrd is available through pip.
The only thing you should need from pyxl.py is the Pyxl class. That exposes all the nice indexing capabilities.
from pyxl import Pyxl
# To load an excel file into a Pyxl object
xlfile = Pyxl("TestFile.xlsx")
# To access an individual sheet in the excel file
sheet1 = xlfile[0]
# To access an entire row in the sheet
print sheet1[0]
# To access an entire column by name
print sheet1["Name"]
# To access an individual cell
print sheet1[0, 2]