{"id":2041,"date":"2026-05-04T07:43:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T23:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xlwings.net\/blog\/?p=2041"},"modified":"2026-03-28T05:36:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T05:36:36","slug":"how-to-use-applicationbuild-in-the-xlwings-api-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xlwings.net\/blog\/how-to-use-applicationbuild-in-the-xlwings-api-way\/","title":{"rendered":"How to use Application.Build in the xlwings API way"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The <code>Application.Build<\/code> property in Excel&#8217;s object model represents the build number of the Excel application. This read-only property returns a <code>Long<\/code> value that corresponds to the specific compilation version of Excel. It is particularly useful for developers who need to implement version-specific logic or ensure compatibility across different builds of Excel, as it provides a more granular identifier than the major version number alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In xlwings, the <code>Application<\/code> object is accessed via the <code>app<\/code> object when you have an instance of an Excel application. The <code>Build<\/code> property can be retrieved directly as an attribute. The syntax is straightforward: after establishing a connection to Excel, you simply call <code>.build<\/code> on the <code>app<\/code> object. There are no parameters required for this property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Syntax:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>app.build<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>This returns an integer representing the build number. For example, in Excel 365, this might be a number like <code>16.0.xxxxx<\/code>, but note that <code>Build<\/code> returns only the numeric build part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Example Usage:<\/strong><br>Consider a scenario where you are automating a report and need to check if the Excel build is compatible with a certain feature. You can retrieve the build number and use it in conditional statements. Below is a code example using xlwings:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>import xlwings as xw\n\n# Connect to the active Excel instance or start a new one\napp = xw.apps.active if xw.apps.active else xw.App()\n\n# Get the build number\nbuild_number = app.build\n\n# Output the build number\nprint(f\"Excel Build Number: {build_number}\")\n\n# Example: Check for a specific build range (e.g., builds after 15000)\nif build_number > 15000:\n    print(\"This build supports advanced features.\")\nelse:\n    print(\"Consider updating Excel for full functionality.\")\n\n# Close the app if it was created in this script (optional)\nif not xw.apps.active:\n    app.quit()<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The `Application.Build` property in Excel&apos;s object model represents the build number of the Excel ap&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-xlwings-api-reference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xlwings.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xlwings.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xlwings.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xlwings.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xlwings.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2041"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/xlwings.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3120,"href":"https:\/\/xlwings.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2041\/revisions\/3120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xlwings.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xlwings.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xlwings.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}