How can I launch an instance of an application using Python?
While the Popen
answers are reasonable for the general case, I would recommend win32api
for this specific case, if you want to do something useful with it:
It goes something like this:
from win32com.client import Dispatch
xl = Dispatch('Excel.Application')
wb = xl.Workbooks.Open('C:\\Documents and Settings\\GradeBook.xls')
xl.Visible = True # optional: if you want to see the spreadsheet
Taken from a mailing list post but there are plenty of examples around.
or
os.system("start excel.exe <path/to/file>")
(presuming it's in the path, and you're on windows)
and also on Windows, just start <filename>
works, too - if it's an associated extension already (as xls would be)