Reading/Writing MS Word files in Python

Question

Is it possible to read and write Word (2003 and 2007) files in Python without using a COM object?
I know that I can:

f = open('c:\file.doc', "w")
f.write(text)
f.close()

but Word will read it as an HTML file not a native .doc file.

score 38 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 02 '15 at 23:03

38

See python-docx, its official documentation is available here.

This has worked very well for me.

edited Apr 02 '15 at 23:03

user.dz

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answered Oct 21 '11 at 10:45

Damian

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But it is supported .doc format, i tried but it throws me a ValueError `ValueError: file '' is not a Word file, content type is 'application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.themeManager+xml` – Shashank Feb 26 '16 at 13:04
It is called python-docx not python-doc, so no. :) – Damian Feb 26 '16 at 17:52
5

@Damian but the question is also about .doc files, so you should note that your answer only applies to .docx files. – oulenz Aug 31 '18 at 07:21
Any idea for opening .doc files then? – linello May 22 '20 at 07:39

score 11 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:17

11

If you only what to read, it is simplest to use the linux soffice command to convert it to text, and then load the text into python:

edited May 23 '17 at 12:17

Community

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answered May 08 '15 at 11:11

markling

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+1 I dont know why this gets a negative voting. This is sometimes the only solution and sometimes it's enough. – max.haredoom Sep 08 '15 at 06:12

score 7 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 08 '17 at 09:18

7

I'd look into IronPython which intrinsically has access to windows/office APIs because it runs on .NET runtime.

edited Jun 08 '17 at 09:18

Florian Bender

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answered Oct 09 '08 at 18:39

auramo

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score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 09 '08 at 18:36

doc (Word 2003 in this case) and docx (Word 2007) are different formats, where the latter is usually just an archive of xml and image files. I would imagine that it is very possible to write to docx files by manipulating the contents of those xml files. However I don't see how you could read and write to a doc file without some type of COM component interface.

Reading/Writing MS Word files in Python

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