title: Using Pandas to read excel from url
body: <p>I am working on a personal project to analyze COVID19 data. Presently, I am download the excel sheet provided by ourworldindata.org, available at this url -> <a href="https://github.com/owid/covid-19-data/blob/master/public/data/owid-covid-data.xlsx" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://github.com/owid/covid-19-data/blob/master/public/data/owid-covid-data.xlsx</a></p>
  
  <p>However, when i try to execute the command in pandas (below), I get a list of errors. What could be the root cause ?</p>
  
  <pre><code>url = 'https://github.com/owid/covid-19-data/blob/master/public/data/owid-covid-data.xlsx'
  df = pd.read_excel(url, sheet_name='Sheet1')
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Error </p>
  
  <pre><code>    Traceback (most recent call last):   File "&lt;input&gt;", line 1, in &lt;module&gt;   File "C:\Users\masoom.kumar\PycharmProjects\ReadingINCA_Data\venv\lib\site-packages\pandas\io\excel\_base.py", line 304, in read_excel
  io = ExcelFile(io, engine=engine)   File "C:\Users\masoom.kumar\PycharmProjects\ReadingINCA_Data\venv\lib\site-packages\pandas\io\excel\_base.py", line 824, in __init__
  self._reader = self._engines[engine](self._io)   File "C:\Users\masoom.kumar\PycharmProjects\ReadingINCA_Data\venv\lib\site-packages\pandas\io\excel\_xlrd.py", line 21, in __init__
  super().__init__(filepath_or_buffer)   File "C:\Users\masoom.kumar\PycharmProjects\ReadingINCA_Data\venv\lib\site-packages\pandas\io\excel\_base.py", line 351, in __init__
  self.book = self.load_workbook(filepath_or_buffer)   File "C:\Users\masoom.kumar\PycharmProjects\ReadingINCA_Data\venv\lib\site-packages\pandas\io\excel\_xlrd.py", line 34, in load_workbook
  return open_workbook(file_contents=data)   File "C:\Users\masoom.kumar\PycharmProjects\ReadingINCA_Data\venv\lib\site-packages\xlrd\__init__.py", line 157, in open_workbook
  ragged_rows=ragged_rows,   File "C:\Users\masoom.kumar\PycharmProjects\ReadingINCA_Data\venv\lib\site-packages\xlrd\book.py", line 92, in open_workbook_xls
  biff_version = bk.getbof(XL_WORKBOOK_GLOBALS)   File "C:\Users\masoom.kumar\PycharmProjects\ReadingINCA_Data\venv\lib\site-packages\xlrd\book.py", line 1278, in getbof
  bof_error('Expected BOF record; found %r' % self.mem[savpos:savpos+8])   File "C:\Users\masoom.kumar\PycharmProjects\ReadingINCA_Data\venv\lib\site-packages\xlrd\book.py", line 1272, in bof_error
  raise XLRDError('Unsupported format, or corrupt file: ' + msg) xlrd.biffh.XLRDError: Unsupported format, or corrupt file: Expected BOF record; found b'\n\n\n\n\n&lt;!D'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Please not that pandas can read the excel if I download it on my computer</p>