In this lesson i want to show you How to Convert Microsoft Word to PDF with Python, to convert a Microsoft word document to pdf with python we want to use two libraries docx and also comtypes. first of all let’s install these libraries.
What is Python-docx
python-docx
is Python library for creating and updating Microsoft Word (.docx) files. it allows you to programmatically create and modify Word documents using Python code. with python-docx
, you can add text, tables, images and other elements to Word document, as well as apply formatting, styles, and templates.
The library provides an object-oriented approach to working with Word documents, where each element of the document (e.g. paragraphs, tables, images) is represented by a Python object. You can create and modify these objects to build up your document, and then save it to a file.
What is comtypes ?
comtypes
is Python library that allows you to interact with Component Object Model (COM) components in Windows. COM is a binary interface standard used for inter-process communication and dynamic object creation in Windows.
with comtypes
you can access and manipulate different of COM components, including Microsoft Office applications such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. this allows you to automate tasks in these applications using Python code.
In case of converting a Word document to a PDF, comtypes
is used to interact with Microsoft Word and save the document as PDF. specifically, comtypes
provides a way to create and manipulate instances of the Microsoft Word application, open Word document, and then save it in PDF format.
Installation
docx
: This library is used to read Word documents in Python. You can install it using the following command:
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pip install python-docx |
comtypes
: This library is used to interact with Microsoft Word and save the document as a PDF. You can install it using the following command:
1 |
pip install comtypes |
Once you have these libraries installed, you should be able to run the Python code to convert a Word document to PDF.
This is the complete code for converting a word document to pdf file.
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#pip install python-docx #pip install comtypes import os import comtypes.client import docx # Set the paths for the Word and PDF files word_path = "file.docx" pdf_path = "file.pdf" # Load the Word document using the docx library doc = docx.Document(word_path) # Save the Word document as a PDF using Microsoft Word word = comtypes.client.CreateObject("Word.Application") docx_path = os.path.abspath(word_path) pdf_path = os.path.abspath(pdf_path) pdf_format = 17 # PDF file format code word.Visible = False in_file = word.Documents.Open(docx_path) in_file.SaveAs(pdf_path, FileFormat=pdf_format) in_file.Close() # Quit Microsoft Word word.Quit() |
Learn More on Python
- Python-Docx: Creating Microsoft Word Documents with Python
- Python and Microsoft Word: A Beginner’s Guide to Automating Documents
- How to Install docx2python: Python Library for Word Documents
- Merge Microsoft Word Documents with Python Docxcompose
- Asynchronous Web Development with Python and aiohttp
- Python Treq: An Introduction to a Powerful HTTP Client Library
- Introduction to Python httplib2 Library
- An Introduction to Python’s urllib Library
- Python httpx: A High-Performance HTTP Client for Python 3