How can I open an Excel file in Python

Try the xlrd library.

From what I can see from your comment, something like the snippet below might do the trick. I’m assuming here that you’re just searching one column for the word ‘john’, but you could add more or make this into a more generic function.

from xlrd import open_workbook

book = open_workbook('simple.xls',on_demand=True)
for name in book.sheet_names():
    if name.endswith('2'):
        sheet = book.sheet_by_name(name)

        # Attempt to find a matching row (search the first column for 'john')
        rowIndex = -1
        for cell in sheet.col(0): # 
            if 'john' in cell.value:
                break

        # If we found the row, print it
        if row != -1:
            cells = sheet.row(row)
            for cell in cells:
                print cell.value

        book.unload_sheet(name)

https://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.13/python-2.7.13.msi
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/xlrd/0.6.1

xlrd description

Extract data from Excel spreadsheets (.xls and .xlsx, versions 2.0 onwards) on any platform. Pure Python (2.7, 3.4+). Strong support for Excel dates. Unicode-aware.

Working with Excel Files in Python