Read Docx files via python

Question

Does anyone know a python library to read docx files?

I have a word document that I am trying to read data from.

Answer 1

There are a couple of packages that let you do this. Check

1. python-docx.

2. docx2txt (note that it does not seem to work with .doc). As per this, it seems to get more info than python-docx. From original documentation:

import docx2txt

# extract text
text = docx2txt.process("file.docx")

# extract text and write images in /tmp/img_dir
text = docx2txt.process("file.docx", "/tmp/img_dir") 

3. textract (which works via docx2txt).

4. Since .docx files are simply .zip files with a changed extension, this shows how to access the contents. This is a significant difference with .doc files, and the reason why some (or all) of the above do not work with .docs. In this case, you would likely have to convert doc -> docx first. antiword is an option.

Answer 2

python-docx can read as well as write.

doc = docx.Document('myfile.docx')
allText = []
for docpara in doc.paragraphs:
    allText.append(docpara.text)

Now all paragraphs will be in the list allText.

Thanks to Automate the Boring Stuff with Python by Al Sweigart for the pointer.