How to extract text from MS word files in Python? - The Web Dev (2024)

How to extract text from MS word files in Python? - The Web Dev (1)

Sometimes, we want to extract text from MS word files in Python.

In this article, we’ll look at how to extract text from MS word files in Python.

How to extract text from MS word files in Python?

To extract text from MS word files in Python, we can use the zipfile library.

For instance, we write

import zipfile, redocx = zipfile.ZipFile('/path/to/file/mydocument.docx')content = docx.read('word/document.xml').decode('utf-8')cleaned = re.sub('<(.|\n)*?>','',content)print(cleaned)

to create ZipFile object with the path string to the Word file.

Then we call read with 'word/document.xml' to read the Word file.

And we call decode to decode the text as Unicode.

Next, we call re.sub to replace the tags with empty strings.

Conclusion

To extract text from MS word files in Python, we can use the zipfile library.

Related Posts

How to extract text from MS word files in Python? - The Web Dev (2)

By John Au-Yeung

Web developer specializing in React, Vue, and front end development.

View Archive

How to extract text from MS word files in Python? - The Web Dev (2024)

FAQs

How do I extract text from a Word Document in Python? ›

The detailed steps are as follows.
  1. Create a Document object.
  2. Load a Word file using Document. LoadFromFile() method.
  3. Get a specific section through Document. Sections[index] property.
  4. Get a specific paragraph through Section. Paragraphs[index] property.
  5. Get text from the paragraph through Paragraph. Text property.

How do I extract text from a Word Document? ›

Here are the steps to extract a text from the page of Microsoft Office Word document:
  1. Instantiate Parser object for the initial document;
  2. Call getDocumentInfo method and obtain IDocumentInfo object with getPageCount property;
  3. Call getText(int) method with the page index and obtain TextReader object;

How do I read the contents of a docx file in Python? ›

Reading Word Documents

docx file in Python, call docx. Document() , and pass the filename demo. docx. This will return a Document object, which has a paragraphs attribute that is a list of Paragraph objects.

How do I extract text from text in Python? ›

Python Extract Words From String
  1. Using Split()
  2. Using Find()
  3. Using List comprehension.
  4. Using Regex.
  5. Using regex() + String.punctuation.
  6. Using NLP Libraries.
Jul 25, 2023

What is the best Python library to extract text from docx? ›

You can use python-docx2txt which is adapted from python-docx but can also extract text from links, headers and footers. It can also extract images.

How to convert docx to text in Python? ›

How to convert DOCX to TXT Python
  1. Install Aspose. Words for Python via . NET.
  2. Add a library reference (import the library) to your Python project.
  3. Open the source DOCX file in Python.
  4. Call the save() method, passing an output filename with TXT extension.
  5. Get the result of DOCX conversion as TXT.

How can you select and copy the entire text from a Word File? ›

Press Ctrl + A on your keyboard to highlight all text in your document. Tip: You can also highlight your entire document by placing your mouse cursor in the left margin and then quickly clicking the left mouse button three times in a row. Press Ctrl + C to copy the entire highlighted selection.

How do I export data from Word? ›

In the Save As type box, select the file format that you want to export data to. In the File name box, type a name for the exported file. Choose Save. Follow the instructions in the Export Wizard to export the data that you want into the proper fields of the destination file.

How do I extract text from a Word document to excel? ›

Using Save As
  1. Open your Word document that you want to convert to Excel.
  2. Click File, and then Save As.
  3. Under Save as type, choose Plain Text from the drop-down list.
  4. On the File Conversion dialog box, check the Preview box to see the formatting in your document. ...
  5. Open Excel and click on the Data tab.

Can we read Word file in Python? ›

You can use python-docx2txt library to read text from Microsoft Word documents. It is an improvement over python-docx library as it can, in addition, extract text from links, headers and footers. It can even extract images. You can install it by running: pip install docx2txt .

How do I read text from a file in Python? ›

In Python, to read a text file, you need to follow the below steps. Step 1: The file needs to be opened for reading using the open() method and pass a file path to the function. Step 2: The next step is to read the file, and this can be achieved using several built-in methods such as read() , readline() , readlines() .

How do I read specific content of a file in Python? ›

Method 1: fileobject.readlines()

A file object can be created in Python and then readlines() method can be invoked on this object to read lines into a stream. This method is preferred when a single line or a range of lines from a file needs to be accessed simultaneously.

How do I extract all text from a website in Python? ›

Use a BeautifulSoup Object

Something like python -i beauty_soup.py will first run your program and then leave you in a REPL where you can explore your objects. For example, BeautifulSoup objects have a .get_text() method that you can use to extract all the text from the document and automatically remove any HTML tags.

How do I get the output of a text file in Python? ›

The write() function is used for writing the string in the text file, and the writelines() function is used for writing the list of the string in the file at once. The writelines() function can also accept the iterable object. The user can also pass the tuple of strings, the set of strings, etc.

Can Python extract text from PDF? ›

Another non-mainstream method to extract text from PDF documents is by using Python. It is a practical and efficient approach for programmers to process large volumes of documents or integrate this functionality into applications or workflows.

How do I read a word from a file in Python? ›

In Python, to read a text file, you need to follow the below steps. Step 1: The file needs to be opened for reading using the open() method and pass a file path to the function. Step 2: The next step is to read the file, and this can be achieved using several built-in methods such as read() , readline() , readlines() .

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Article information

Author: Rueben Jacobs

Last Updated:

Views: 6147

Rating: 4.7 / 5 (57 voted)

Reviews: 88% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Rueben Jacobs

Birthday: 1999-03-14

Address: 951 Caterina Walk, Schambergerside, CA 67667-0896

Phone: +6881806848632

Job: Internal Education Planner

Hobby: Candle making, Cabaret, Poi, Gambling, Rock climbing, Wood carving, Computer programming

Introduction: My name is Rueben Jacobs, I am a cooperative, beautiful, kind, comfortable, glamorous, open, magnificent person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.