title: How to read the Font and Background color in excel using xlrd version 1.1.0
body: <p>Actually I am using xlrd module 1.1.0 version, but I don't know how to read cell properties like background color, font, and whether cell is locked.</p>
  
  <p>I tried to use</p>
  
  <pre><code>import xlrd
  book = xlrd.open_workbook("sample.xls", formatting_info=True)
  sheets = book.sheet_names()
  print "sheets are:", sheets
  for index, sh in enumerate(sheets):
      sheet = book.sheet_by_index(index)
      print "Sheet:", sheet.name
      rows, cols = sheet.nrows, sheet.ncols
      print "Number of rows: %s   Number of cols: %s" % (rows, cols)
      for row in range(rows):
          for col in range(cols):
              print "row, col is:", row+1, col+1,
              thecell = sheet.cell(row, col)      
              # could get 'dump', 'value', 'xf_index'
              print thecell.value,
              xfx = sheet.cell_`enter code here`xf_index(row, col)
              xf = book.xf_list[xfx]
              bgx = xf.background.pattern_colour_index
              print bgx
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>t raises an error saying formatting information needs to be set while reading wb, but if I had that parameter then it shows it is still not implemented.</p>
  
  <p>Is there another module or how can this module itself be made to read cell properties?</p>
  
  <p>python xlrd Thank you in advance</p>