Accepting all changes to an MS Word document using Python

Question

I want to be able to accept all changes from an MS Word document (.docx) from Python, preferably using the python-docx module.

I know how to do this in Perl (see below for reference), but would like to have my own code in my Python program to do the same. Ida

Any idea?

 use strict; use Win32::OLE qw(in with valof OVERLOAD); use Win32::OLE::Const 'Microsoft.Word'; # wd constants use Win32::OLE::Variant; $Win32::OLE::Warn = 3; my $true = Variant(VT_BOOL, 1); my $false = Variant(VT_BOOL, 0); use File::Spec; use File::Basename; ## Original & New File my $DocFile = &transform_path($ARGV[0]); my $NewFile = ($ARGV[1] ? &transform_path($ARGV[1]) : $DocFile); [ -e $DocFile ] || die "*** Cannot open '$DocFile'\n"; ### Transform path sub transform_path { my $path = shift; if ( ! File::Spec->file_name_is_absolute($path) ) { my $abs = File::Spec->rel2abs($path); $path = $abs; } else { $path=~s%/+%\\%g; } return $path; } ## Autoflush $| = 1; ### opening file: try with "new" function, otherwise use "GetActiveObject" my $Word; eval { $Word = Win32::OLE->GetActiveObject('Word.Application') || Win32::OLE->new('Word.Application', 'Quit'); }; if ( $@ ) { print "Please open MS Word manually before continuing\n"; print "...Press ENTER to continue...\n"; <STDIN>; $Word = Win32::OLE->GetActiveObject('Word.Application','Quit'); } print "Opening '$DocFile'\n"; my $document = $Word->Documents->Open({FileName =>$DocFile, ConfirmConversions => 0}); die "Cannot open '$DocFile'\n" unless defined $document; $document->Activate(); $Word->ActiveWindow->ActivePane->View->{Type} = wdPrintView; ### Accept all changes print("Accepting all changes\n"); $Word->ActiveDocument->{TrackRevisions} = $false; $Word->WordBasic->AcceptAllChangesInDoc(); ### Save and Close if ($NewFile eq $DocFile) { $document->Save(); $document->Close(); } else { $document->SaveAs($NewFile); $document->Close(wdDoNotSaveChanges); } print "Saving in '$NewFile'\n" ## END ## 

Answer 1

This function can receive text after accepting the changes in this paragraph (see fooobar.com/questions/12179519 / ... ):

 from docx import Document try: from xml.etree.cElementTree import XML except ImportError: from xml.etree.ElementTree import XML WORD_NAMESPACE = "{http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main}" TEXT = WORD_NAMESPACE + "t" def get_accepted_text(p): """Return text of a paragraph after accepting all changes""" xml = p._p.xml if "w:del" in xml or "w:ins" in xml: tree = XML(xml) runs = (node.text for node in tree.getiterator(TEXT) if node.text) return "".join(runs) else: return p.text doc = Document("Hello.docx") for p in doc.paragraphs: print(get_accepted_text(p)) 

For cells, we need to make a loop for all paragraphs:

 "\n".join([get_accepted_text(p) for p in cell.paragraphs])" 

If you need to accept changes in the whole document, the following script can help (transcribing Perl in Python with Pywin32 ):

 from argparse import ArgumentParser, SUPPRESS, HelpFormatter import datetime from glob import glob import os import re import subprocess import sys import win32com.client as win32 from win32com.client import constants def accept_changes(inputs, new_file=None, outdir=None, verbose=True): """Accept all changes in a MS Word document""" # Several files or directory parsed as argument if isinstance(inputs, list): for input in inputs: accept_changes(input, None, outdir, verbose) return None elif os.path.isdir(inputs): for dir, subdirs, files in os.walk (inputs): for name in files: path = os.path.join (dir, name).replace ('\\', '/') if '~$' not in path and re.search(r'\.(docx?|rtf)$', path): accept_changes(path, None, outdir, verbose) return None else: pass # Get absolute paths of files doc_file_abs = os.path.abspath(inputs) new_file_abs = os.path.abspath(new_file) if new_file else doc_file_abs new_file_abs = re.sub(r'\.\w+$', '.docx', new_file_abs) if outdir is not None: if not os.path.exists(outdir): os.mkdir(outdir) path = outdir + '/' + re.sub(r'.*[/\\]', '', new_file_abs) new_file_abs = os.path.abspath(path) # Check if not os.path.isfile(doc_file_abs): print("ERROR: input file '%s' cannot be found" % doc_file_abs) return None # Opening MS Word word = win32.gencache.EnsureDispatch('Word.Application') doc = word.Documents.Open(doc_file_abs) doc.Activate () if verbose: print("File '%s' has been opened" % inputs) # Accept all changes if verbose: print ("Accepting all changes") word.ActiveDocument.TrackRevisions = False try: word.WordBasic.AcceptAllChangesInDoc () except TypeError: pass # Save and Close try: if new_file_abs == doc_file_abs: word.ActiveDocument.Save() if verbose: print("Document '%s' saved" % inputs) else: word.ActiveDocument.SaveAs( new_file_abs, FileFormat=constants.wdFormatXMLDocument ) if verbose: print("Document saved to '%s'" % (new_file or new_file_abs)) except Exception as e: print("ERROR while trying to save '%s': %s" % (new_file_abs, e)) doc.Close(False) # Return path of updated file return new_file_abs def main(): # -Information on the Program-# copyright_year = 2017 prog = "accept_docx_changes" version_string = "%s v1.0" % prog help_string = """\ Purpose: Accept all changes in a MS Word document and save (as docx). """ # -Parse options-# parser = ArgumentParser ( description=help_string, prog=prog, formatter_class=lambda prog: HelpFormatter (prog, max_help_position=30) ) # Configuration(s) for Traceability parser.add_argument ( "inputs", nargs="+", help="Files we want to accept changes" ) # Output file parser.add_argument ( "-o", "--output", action="store", default=None, metavar="FILE", help="Name of output file" ) parser.add_argument ( "-d", "--outdir", action="store", default=None, metavar="DIR", help="Name of output direcory" ) # Open if we have transformed one file parser.add_argument ( "-p", "--open", action='store_true', default=False, help="Open Saved file after accepting all changes" ) # Version parser.add_argument ( "--version", action='store_true', dest="print_version", help="print version of %s" % prog ) # Verbose mode parser.add_argument ( "-q", "--quiet", action="store_true", default=False, help="Hide message of each operation done" ) # Parsing options global options options = parser.parse_args () # Let start msg = "%s started at %s" if not options.quiet: ctime = datetime.datetime.now ().ctime () print (msg % (version_string, ctime)) # Let get into business and do our stuff output = None if len(options.inputs) > 1 else options.output verbose = not options.quiet out = accept_changes(options.inputs, output, options.outdir, verbose) # And we are done! msg = "%s finished at %s" if not options.quiet: ctime = datetime.datetime.now ().ctime () print (msg % (version_string, ctime)) # Let look at what we did if out is not None and options.open: if sys.platform.startswith ('darwin'): subprocess.call (('open', out)) elif os.name == 'nt': os.startfile (out) elif os.name == 'posix': subprocess.call (('xdg-open', out)) if __name__ == '__main__': main () # -END- #