I'm trying to extract not just the text from a DOCX file but also all the formatting details. I'm looking to capture things like page margins, bold and underline formatting, text alignment (left, right, center, justified), as well as newlines, spaces, tabs, bullet and numbered lists, and tables. While I've looked into using `python-docx`, it seems limited in what it can access—only basic things like bold/underline and paragraph alignment are exposed. I suspect I'll need to parse the XML directly for details like ruler positions and custom tab stops. Has anyone faced this challenge? Are there any other Python libraries or methods apart from `python-docx` that could reliably help me get this level of detail? Any tips, code examples, or resources would be greatly appreciated!
1 Answer
I think you’re on the right track with using XML. A DOCX file is essentially a zipped collection of XML files, so if you unzip it, you can indeed find everything there in a readable format. But be warned, it's a lot of XML to sift through! You might need to write a parser to extract just the info you want.
Yeah, I tried that too, and it’s super overwhelming! I was hoping for a library that does some of the heavy lifting for me. Let me know if you find anything!