I'm wondering if there's a way to refer to columns when using XlsxWriter by their name, and not the column letter or index, in the event that the column index changes but I still want the formatting to apply to the same column, even if its position changes.

I am also exporting the contents of a data frame to an Excel file beforehand so if there's a way to reference the column using Pandas and then assign that reference to a variable that's invoked where the column reference in the XlsxWriter method goes then that could work too.

Instead of this:

df.to_excel(writer, sheet_name='RCM_Output',index = False)

worksheet.data_validation(A1:A500, {'validate': 'list',
                                  'source': ['blocked', 'unblocked']})

It it possible to write some sort of dynamic variable in place of the hardcoded cell references?

df.to_excel(writer, sheet_name='RCM_Output',index = False)

worksheet.data_validation('Block Status':1:500, {'validate': 'list',
                                  'source': ['blocked', 'unblocked']})