What is python-docx?

python-openxml/python-docx — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-06-26

★ 5,575PythonAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5Setup · easy

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((repo))
    What it does
      Read Word files
      Create Word files
      Edit Word files
    Supported elements
      Paragraphs
      Headings
      Tables
      Images
    Use cases
      Report generation
      Template filling
      Text extraction
    Setup
      pip install
      No extra dependencies

mindmap root((repo)) What it does Read Word files Create Word files Edit Word files Supported elements Paragraphs Headings Tables Images Use cases Report generation Template filling Text extraction Setup pip install No extra dependencies

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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Generate Word reports automatically from a Python script without opening Microsoft Word

USE CASE 2

Fill in a document template by replacing placeholder text with real data from a database or API

USE CASE 3

Extract all text from .docx files for search indexing or further processing

USE CASE 4

Add formatted tables, headings, and images to a Word document from code

What is it built with?

Python

How does it compare?

	python-openxml/python-docx	huggingface/parler-tts	lanmaster53/recon-ng
Stars	5,575	5,576	5,577
Language	Python	Python	Python
Setup difficulty	easy	moderate	moderate
Complexity	2/5	3/5	3/5
Audience	developer	developer	ops devops

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

License terms are not stated in the explanation, though the project is open-source.

So what is it?

python-docx is a Python library for reading, creating, and modifying Microsoft Word files in the .docx format. Word files from 2007 onward use this format, so the library covers any modern Word document. The library lets you open an existing document and read its contents, add new paragraphs, headings, tables, images, and other elements, then save the result as a new or updated .docx file. The README shows a minimal example: creating a blank document, adding a paragraph, saving it, then reopening it and reading the paragraph back out. More detailed documentation is available on the project's ReadTheDocs site. Installation is a single command via pip, the standard Python package manager. The library is useful for any situation where you want to generate Word documents from code rather than opening Word manually. Common use cases include generating reports, filling in document templates, or extracting text from Word files for further processing. The README itself is brief and points to external documentation for full usage details.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1

Using python-docx, write a script that creates a Word document with a title, three body paragraphs, and a 3-column table

Prompt 2

How do I open an existing .docx file with python-docx and replace every occurrence of a specific word with new text?

Prompt 3

Write Python code using python-docx to insert an image into a Word document and add a caption below it

Prompt 4

How do I extract all the paragraph text from a .docx file using python-docx and save it to a plain .txt file?

Prompt 5

Generate a Word invoice from a Python dictionary of customer name, line items, and totals using python-docx

Frequently asked questions