Missing XLRD dependency when loading an Excel file with Pandas
If you get the error:
ImportError: Missing optional dependency 'xlrd'
when running the read_excel function from Pandas, and you installed Pandas via Anaconda, the solution that worked for me was to install the package using Anaconda. That way it is installed in the right environment for Pandas to find it:
conda install xlrd
You might need to say 'Yes' to proceed with the package installation. But once that's done, you can go back to your Jupyter Notebooks and the same pd.read_excel(...) command WILL work this time. No need for reloading the Jupyter server!
Some solutions out there invite you to run pip install xlrd but that is installing somewhere else, and Jupyter Notebooks can't find the package. As to why exactly, I'm not familiar enough with all of this world to answer, but feel free to investigate if intrigued! (and let me know please).