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.

Coatee

Answer 1

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

Tocantins

Answer 2

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.

Mice

But it is supported .doc format, i tried but it throws me a ValueError ValueError: file '<open file 'file.doc', mode 'r' at 0x7f29a1b5a6f0>' is not a Word file, content type is 'application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.themeManager+xml – Wollongong

It is called python-docx not python-doc, so no. :) – Mice

@Mice but the question is also about .doc files, so you should note that your answer only applies to .docx files. – Tude

Any idea for opening .doc files then? – Middlebrow

Answer 3

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:

Fetishist

+1 I dont know why this gets a negative voting. This is sometimes the only solution and sometimes it's enough. – Lustral

Answer 4

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.

Sikang