Adding hyperlinks in Microsoft word using python

Question

I've been searching for the last few hours and cannot find a library that allows me to add hyperlinks to a word document using python. In my ideal world I'd be able to manipulate a word doc using python to add hyperlinks to footnotes which link to internal documents. Python-docx doesn't seem to have this feature.

It breaks down into 2 questions. 1) Is there a way to add hyperlinks to word docs using python? 2) Is there a way to manipulate footnotes in word docs using python?

Does anyone know how to do this or any part of this?

Answer 1

Hyperlinks can be added using the win32com package:

import win32com.client

#connect to Word (start it if it isn't already running)
wordapp = win32com.client.Dispatch("Word.Application")

#add a new document
doc = wordapp.Documents.Add()

#add some text and turn it into a hyperlink
para = doc.Paragraphs.Add()
para.Range.Text = "Adding hyperlinks in Microsoft word using python"
doc.Hyperlinks.Add(Anchor=para.Range,  Address="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/34636391/adding-hyperlinks-in-microsoft-word-using-python")
#In theory you should be able to also pass in a TextToDisplay argument to the above call but I haven't been able to get this to work
#The workaround is to insert the link text into the document first and then convert it into a hyperlink

Answer 2

# How to insert hyperlinks into an existing MS Word document using win32com:

# Use the same call as in the example above to connect to Word:
wordapp = win32com.client.Dispatch("Word.Application")

# Open the input file where you want to insert the hyperlinks:
wordapp.Documents.Open("my_input_file.docx")

# Select the currently active document
doc = wordapp.ActiveDocument

# For my application, I want to replace references to identifiers in another 
# document with the general format of "MSS-XXXX", where X is any digit, with 
# hyperlinks to local html pages that capture the supporting details...

# First capture the entire document's content as text
docText = doc.Content.text

# Search for all identifiers that match the format criteria in the document:
mss_ids_to_link = re.findall('MSS-[0-9]+', docText)

# Now loop over all the identifier strings that were found, construct the link
# address for each html page to be linked, select the desired text where I want
# to insert the hyperlink, and then apply the link to the correct range of 
# characters:
for linkIndex in range(len(mss_ids_to_link)):
    current_string_to_link = mss_ids_to_link[linkIndex]
    link_address           = html_file_pathname + \
                             current_string_to_link + '.htm'
    if wordapp.Selection.Find.Execute(FindText=current_string_to_link, \
                                      Address=link_address) == True:
        doc.Hyperlinks.Add(Anchor=wordapp.Selection.Range, \
                           Address=link_address)

# Save off the result:
doc.SaveAs('my_input_file.docx')