title: Python decoding excel sheet without pandas
body: <p>I am trying to read an excel file in python without using <code>pandas</code> or <code>xlrd</code>, and I have been trying to convert the results from <code>bytes</code> to <code>utf-8</code> without any success.</p>
  
  <p><strong>data from xls file</strong></p>
  
  <pre><code>colA    colB    colC
  spc     1D0     20190705
  spd     1D0     20190705
  spe     1D0     20190705
  ... (goes on for 500k lines)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><strong>code</strong></p>
  
  <pre><code>with open(file, 'rb') as f:
      data = f.readlines(1)  # Just to check the first line that is printed out
      print(data[0].decode('utf-8'))
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The error I receive is <code>UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xd0 in position 0: invalid continuation byte</code></p>
  
  <p>If I were to print <code>data</code> without decoding it, the result is: <code>[b'\xd0\xcf\x11\xe0\xa1\xb1\x1a\xe1\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00&gt;\x00\x03\x00\xfe\xff\t\x00\x06\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x9e\x00\x00\x00\x9dN\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x10\x00\x00\xfe\xff\xff\xff\x00\x00\x00\x00\xfeM\x00\x00\x01\x00\x00\x00\xffM\x00\x00\x00N\x00\x00\x01N\x00\x00\x02N\x00\x00\x03N\x00\x00\x04N\x00\x00\x05N\x00\x00\x06N\x00\x00\x07N\x00\x00\x08N\x00\x00\tN\x00\x00\n']</code></p>
  
  <p>There isn't any reason why I don't want to use <code>pandas</code> or <code>xlrd</code>, I am just trying to parse the data with just the standard libraries if required. </p>
  
  <p>Any thoughts?</p>