openpyxl: assign value or apply format to a range of Excel cells without iteration

This is not quite exact. OpenPyxel allows to apply styles to columns and rows:

According to: https://openpyxl.readthedocs.io/en/stable/styles.html

Styles can also applied to columns and rows but note that this applies only to cells created (in Excel) after the file is closed. If you want to apply styles to entire rows and columns then you must apply the style to each cell yourself. This is a restriction of the file format:

col = ws.column_dimensions['A']
col.font = Font(bold=True)
row = ws.row_dimensions[1]
row.font = Font(underline="single")

In Excel styles must be applied to individual cells because this is how the file format works. Because of the way it works, openpyxl does not provide the desired functionality, but it is possible with xlsxwriter.