django-tablib is a helper library for Django that allows tablib datasets to be generated from Django models.

django_tablib.ModelDataset()

A wrapper around tablib.Dataset that handles the conversion of Django QuerySets to a format that tablib can work with in the model of Django's ModelForm and ModelAdmin.

The below examples are all based on this model: :

from django.db import models

class MyModel(models.Model):
    myfield1 = models.TextField()
    myfield2 = models.TextField()

Create a tablib Dataset from a Django model, automatically introspecting all fields from the model: :

from django_tablib import ModelDataset
from myapp.models import MyModel

class MyModelDataset(ModelDataset):
    class Meta:
        model = MyModel

# This dataset will have the fields 'id', 'myfield1' and 'myfield2'.
data = MyModelDataset()

Create a tablib Dataset from a Django model, including only certain, desired fields: :

from django_tablib import ModelDataset
from myapp.models import MyModel

class MyModelDataset(ModelDataset):
    class Meta:
        model = MyModel
        fields = ['id', 'myfield1']

# This dataset will have the fields 'id', and 'myfield1'.
data = MyModelDataset()

Create a tablib Dataset from a Django model, excluding certain, undesired fields: :

from django_tablib import ModelDataset
from myapp.models import MyModel

class MyModelDataset(ModelDataset):
    class Meta:
        model = MyModel
        exclude = ['myfield2']

# This dataset will have the fields 'id', and 'myfield1'.
data = MyModelDataset()

Create a tablib Dataset from a Django model declaratively specifying the fields to be used: :

from django_tablib import ModelDataset, Field
from myapp.models import MyModel

class MyModelDataset(ModelDataset):
    myfield1 = Field()
    myfield2 = Field()

    class Meta:
        model = MyModel

# This dataset will have the fields 'id', 'myfield1' and 'myfield2'.
data = MyModelDataset()

Create a tablib Dataset from a Django QuerySet: :

from django_tablib import ModelDataset
from myapp.models import MyModel

class MyModelDataset(ModelDataset):
    class Meta:
        queryset = MyModel.objects.filter(is_awesome=True)

# This dataset will have the fields 'id', 'myfield1' and 'myfield2'.
data = MyModelDataset()

Create a tablib Dataset from a Django model declaratively specifying fields and their headers: :

from django_tablib import ModelDataset, Field
from myapp.models import MyModel

class MyModelDataset(ModelDataset):
    myfield1 = Field(header='No More Boring Field Names!')

    class Meta:
        model = MyModel

# This dataset will have the fields 'id',
# 'No More Boring Field Names' and 'myfield2'.
data = MyModelDataset()

Add a new row: :

>>> data.append(MyModel(**values))

Add a new column: :

>>> data.append(col=['header', 'value1', 'value2' ... 'valuen'])

Delete a row: :

>>> del data[1]

For everything else see the tablib documentation!

django_tablib.views.export

django_tablib provides a generic Django view to automatically export your querysets to an Excel spreadsheet. In your urls.py:

(r'^export/$', 'django_tablib.views.export', {
    'model': MyModel,
})

django_tablib.views.generic_export

If you have many models to export you may prefer use the generic export view:

1. Add the view to urlpatterns in urls.py:

   url(r'export/(?P<model_name>[^/]+)/$', "django_tablib.views.generic_export"),

2. Create the settings.TABLIB_MODELS dictionary using lower-case model names in "app.model" format as keys and the permitted field lookups or None as values:

   TABLIB_MODELS = {
       'myapp.simple': None,
       'myapp.related': {'simple__title': ('exact', 'iexact')},
   }

3. Open /export/myapp.simple or /export/myapp.related/?simple__title__iexact=test

django_tablib.admin.TablibAdmin

For easy exporting of your models directly from the Django admin, django_tablib now provides a ModelAdmin subclass giving you a button to export to Excel straight from the change list:

from django.contrib import admin
from django_tablib.admin import TablibAdmin
from myapp.models import MyModel

class MyModelAdmin(TablibAdmin):
    formats = ['xls', 'json', 'yaml', 'csv', 'html',]

admin.site.register(MyModel, MyModelAdmin)

You can also customize which fields from MyModel are used by supplying a headers list:

from django.contrib import admin
from django_tablib.admin import TablibAdmin
from myapp.models import MyModel

class MyModelAdmin(TablibAdmin):
    formats = ['xls', 'json', 'yaml', 'csv', 'html',]
    headers = ['field_one', 'field_two',]

admin.site.register(MyModel, MyModelAdmin)

That's it!

django-tablib has been tested with Django 1.4. On Django 1.5 it does throw a deprecation warning (see issue #25).