docwow 0.3.0

Pure Python Word (DOCX) ↔ HTML conversion with guaranteed round-trip fidelity

docwow

Pure Python Word (DOCX) ↔ HTML conversion with guaranteed round-trip fidelity.

docwow converts Word documents to a self-contained HTML representation and back again — without losing a single paragraph indent, table merge, list level, or inline image.

Why docwow?

Existing libraries solve half the problem:

Library	DOCX → HTML	HTML → DOCX	Round-trip
mammoth	good	—	—
python-docx	—	basic	—
docwow	yes	yes	guaranteed

The key insight: docwow embeds every piece of Word metadata into data-dw-* HTML attributes alongside the visual CSS. The browser renders the CSS; when you convert back to DOCX, docwow reads the data attributes and reconstructs the original Word XML exactly.

Install

pip install docwow

Quick Start

import docwow

# DOCX → HTML
html = docwow.to_html("document.docx")

# HTML → DOCX (round-trip)
docwow.to_docx(html, "output.docx")

# Or use the Document object for programmatic editing
doc = docwow.open("document.docx")
para = doc.paragraphs.add_paragraph()
para.runs.add_text("Hello world", bold=True)
doc.to_docx("output.docx")

Feature Support

✅ Supported

Feature	Notes
Paragraphs	Text, alignment, indentation, spacing, keep-together/with-next, page-break-before
Run formatting	Bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, font name/size, colour, highlight, superscript/subscript
Inline images	PNG, JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, WebP, SVG, EMF, WMF
Tables	Column spans, row spans (vMerge), column/row widths, table-level styles
Lists	Bullet and numbered, up to 9 nesting levels, decimal/lowerLetter/upperLetter/lowerRoman/upperRoman formats
Hyperlinks	External URLs, mailto links
Paragraph styles	Style ID round-trip, Heading 1–9 and custom styles
Page geometry	Page size, margins
Programmatic API	Open, edit, and save documents in pure Python

🚧 In Progress

Nothing currently — check back soon.

🗓 Planned

Feature	Notes
Headers & footers	Including page numbers
Table of contents	Requires bookmark support
Bookmarks	In-document anchor links and TOC targets
Comments	Annotations / review marks
Track changes	Accept/reject revision marks
Footnotes & endnotes
General HTML → DOCX	Best-effort conversion of arbitrary HTML (not just docwow HTML)

Documentation

Full documentation at docwow.readthedocs.io.

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• lxml
• Pillow

Built with Claude Code

This library was vibe coded using Claude Code. Community suggestions, bug reports, and PRs are very welcome.

License

MIT