title: I need to create list in python from OpenOffice Calc columns
body: <p>The problem is I have large amounts of data in OpenOffice Calc, approximately 3600 entries for each of 4 different categories and 3 different sets of this data, and I need to run some calculations on it in python. I want to create lists corresponding each of the four categories. I am hoping someone can help guide me to an easy-ish, efficient way to do this whether it be script or importing data.  I am using python 2.7 on a windows 8 machine. Any help is greatly appreciated. </p>
  
  <p>My current method i am trying is to save odf file as cvs then use genfromtxt(from numpy). </p>
  
  <pre><code>from numpy import genfromtxt
  my_data = genfromtxt('C:\Users\tomdi_000\Desktop\Load modeling(WSU)\PMU Data\Data18-1fault-Alvey-csv trial.csv', delimiter=',')
  print(my_data)
  
    File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Wing IDE 101 5.0\src\debug\tserver\_sandbox.py", line 5, in &lt;module&gt;
    File "c:\Python27\Lib\site-packages\numpy\lib\npyio.py", line 1352, in genfromtxt
      fhd = iter(np.lib._datasource.open(fname, 'rbU'))
    File "c:\Python27\Lib\site-packages\numpy\lib\_datasource.py", line 147, in open
      return ds.open(path, mode)
    File "c:\Python27\Lib\site-packages\numpy\lib\_datasource.py", line 496, in open
      raise IOError("%s not found." % path)
  IOError: C:\Users   omdi_000\Desktop\Load modeling(WSU)\PMU Data\Data18-1fault-Alvey-csv trial.csv not found.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>the error stems from this code in _datasource.py</p>
  
  <pre><code>    # NOTE: _findfile will fail on a new file opened for writing.
      found = self._findfile(path)
      if found:
          _fname, ext = self._splitzipext(found)
          if ext == 'bz2':
              mode.replace("+", "")
          return _file_openers[ext](found, mode=mode)
      else:
          raise IOError("%s not found." % path)
  </code></pre>