Requires the xlrd library to read Excel 97 .xls files.

xls2csv

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

import re

from os import path
from optparse import OptionParser
from xlrd import open_workbook


def run():
    parser = OptionParser("%prog [options] input.xls")
    parser.add_option('-c', '--columns', action='store', dest='columns', type='string', default="", help="Columnas a exportar (por defecto todas). Ej: --columns='4,3,2,5,1,0'")
    options, args = parser.parse_args()

    if len(args) != 1:
        parser.print_usage()
        return 1

    if not path.isfile(args[0]):
        parser.error("%s no existe." % args[0])
        return 2

    wb = open_workbook(args[0], on_demand=True, encoding_override="utf-8")
    ws = wb.sheet_by_index(0)

    if options.columns:
        columns = [int(x.strip()) for x in options.columns.split(',')]
    else:
        columns = [x for x in range(0, ws.ncols)]

    for i in range(0, ws.nrows):
        values = []
        for j in columns:
            if j >= 0:
                val = ws.cell(i, j).value
                if isinstance(val, unicode):
                    val = re.sub(r'(\n|\r|["])+', ' ', val.encode('utf-8').strip())
                elif isinstance(val, float):
                    val = int(val)
            else:
                val = ''
            values.append('"%s"' % val)
        print ",".join(values)
        # sys.stdout.write(u"%s\n" % ";".join(values))

    return 0

if __name__ == "__main__":
    run()