Programming · course 20 of 105
Python for the Paperwork Pile
Clear the office chores in Python: folders and file names with pathlib, spreadsheets with openpyxl, and PDFs with pypdf, from reading a cell to joining files in the right order.
Not on sale yet. When sales open: $4.99 USD for this course, paid once, or every course for $9.99 USD a month. Prices
$4.99 USD, paid once. Or every course for $9.99 USD a month until you cancel; try it free for 7 days first (email only, no card, ends on its own). Tax added at checkout where it applies.
Runs in Claude (claude.ai, the Claude apps or Claude Code) with your own Claude account. A course opens there as soon as your payment goes through; nothing is shipped.
Preview
What it teaches
The three chores that pile up on an office desk, done in Python. Folders and file names with pathlib (a path’s name, stem, suffix and parent, joining pieces with /, which files a *.txt or page?.pdf pattern picks, what a rename or copy loop leaves behind), spreadsheets with openpyxl (reading a cell or a block of rows, adding a row, totalling a column in Python, why a formula cell holds text and not a number) and PDFs with pypdf (counting pages, reading a page’s text, joining files in the right order, picking pages, turning a page). Most questions show a tiny folder, sheet or PDF as text plus a few lines of code, and ask what it prints, or ask you to write the one line. The AI asks 3 questions, places you, shows a short card per module, then gives you one question at a time.
It is not a course in Excel, in PDFs or in Python itself, and it can’t look at your own files.
How long
41 items. About 12-40 rounds for someone who knows most of the pieces, up to about 60-80 for a beginner (AI-simulated: 12 and 15 rounds for two confident students, 69 for a beginner), plus a 12-item final: 1-3 sessions (estimate, not timed with a real student). The tutor gives a one-line save code at the end of each session.
The modules
4 modules, drilled one item at a time.
- M0
The words
The words: a path’s name, suffix and stem, glob patterns, sheets, cells, formulas against values, PDF pages
- M1
Folders and paths
Folders and paths with pathlib: name, stem, suffix and parent, joining pieces, which files a pattern picks, what a rename or copy loop leaves behind
- M2
Spreadsheets with openpyxl
Spreadsheets with openpyxl: read a cell or a block of rows, add a row, total a column, why a formula cell holds text
- M3
PDFs with pypdf
PDFs with pypdf: count pages, read a page’s text, join files in order, pick pages, turn a page
Before it teaches, it asks
- 1What would you like Python to do for you at work (rename files, fill in spreadsheets, join PDFs, something else), and which of pathlib, openpyxl and pypdf have you used?
- 2What does this print?Folder inbox holds: data.csv, memo.txt, memo.txt.bak, todo.txt, txt.log. from pathlib import Pathfolder = Path("inbox")print(sorted(p.name for p in folder.glob("*.txt")))
- 3What does this print?
Show the code it asks about (10 lines)
Sheet Sales in orders.xlsx (the file has 2 sheets: Sales, Notes): | | A | B | C ||---|---|---|---|| 1 | Item | Qty | Price || 2 | pen | 3 | 2 || 3 | pad | 5 | 4 || 4 | ink | 2 | 7 | from openpyxl import load_workbookws = load_workbook("orders.xlsx")["Sales"]print(ws["B3"].value)
What’s exact, and what isn’t
Show
Straight from the course’s own notes.
- Keys made by running code
- Every M1, M2 and M3 key (31 items) and every wrong answer listed under them (34 of them) was made or checked by running the code in a fresh scratch folder, on Python 3.14.3, openpyxl 3.1.5 and pypdf 6.20.1 (a script reports a problem and writes nothing if any of the three is a different version). A wrong answer is listed only if running its slip gives exactly the wrong result shown (or the named error) and that differs from the key. For the “write the one line” items the key is the line itself; the script runs it on the sample and the working shows what it gives.
- The samples are real
- The folders, the workbook (orders.xlsx, made with openpyxl) and the PDFs are built by a script, and the sample printed in each question is read back from those files, not typed.
- Card sentences are quotes
- The sentences in quotation marks on the cards are quoted from the docs (42 quotes, read 2026-10-13: Python 3.14 docs for pathlib, shutil and glob; the openpyxl docs; the pypdf docs) and checked word for word on saved copies. The checking script does not re-fetch the live pages. M0's 10 answers are short answers built from the quotes on the M0 card, not word-for-word quotes and not computed. A few plain-words explanations on the cards (what a path, a glob pattern, a workbook, a cell, a formula is; what the iter_rows options mean) are this course’s own wording, not quotes; every example result on a card is printed by running code, and no M1-M3 key rests on a card sentence.
- Versions
- The docs pages are headed Python 3.14.8, openpyxl 3.1.3 and pypdf 6.20.1; the keys were made on Python 3.14.3, openpyxl 3.1.5 and pypdf 6.20.1. These libraries change; other versions may print something different.
- Honest limits
- The AI reads your code against the key and doesn’t run it (it doesn’t have the sample files, and in an app that can run code it would run on your real files), so a line it can’t trace gets “I can’t tell” rather than a guess. Printed paths use / (a Windows computer prints \, which the tutor counts as the same). The openpyxl docs say “openpyxl never evaluates formula”, so the course never claims a value openpyxl did not produce (the one data_only question shows what running it gives). The samples are tiny; real messy files, scanned PDFs and big sheets are not drilled. The course can’t tell whether a script is safe to run on your real files.
- Not in this course
- Reading and writing plain text files with open(), lines and JSON; CSV and JSON format rules; how to write Excel formulas.
- Not in it yet
- Word (.docx) files, email, scheduling a script to run on its own, the older os / os.path way of handling paths, pandas, the old .xls format, formatting and charts in openpyxl, scanned PDFs and OCR, encrypting or editing the contents of a PDF, a drill on listing a workbook’s sheet names (it is on the M2 card; one item reads a cell from a named sheet), shutil.move as a question of its own (it appears as a wrong answer and on the M1 card).