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 37 · Answer 1 · edited Dec 01 '22 at 12:53

37

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

This has worked very well for me.

Note that this does not work for .doc files, only .docx files.

edited Dec 01 '22 at 12:53

ChaddRobertson

605
3
11
30

answered Oct 21 '11 at 10:45

Damian

2,588
23
19

3

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
8

@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
1

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

1
1

answered May 08 '15 at 11:11

markling

1,232
1
15
28

2

+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

161
2
4

answered Oct 09 '08 at 18:39

auramo

13,167
13
66
88

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

4 Answers4

Linked

Related