HandleMyFile for Python

Why HandleMyFile for Python?

Most Python PDF-to-Word solutions suffer from critical operational drawbacks:

• They wrap heavy external applications like LibreOffice / soffice or Java runtimes, causing massive container bloat (500 MB+ Docker images) and high memory overhead.
• Or they rely on third-party SaaS cloud APIs, introducing data privacy risks, network latency, and recurring billing.

HandleMyFile embeds a pure Rust Document Layout Analysis (DLA) engine directly into Python as a native C-extension:

1. Zero External Binary Dependencies:
   No apt-get install libreoffice, no Java JVM, no Poppler utilities. Just pip install handlemyfile.
2. Lightning-Fast Native PyO3 Execution:
   Executes directly in-process at native compiled speed with minimal RAM consumption.
3. Versatile Dual API (Bytes & Files):
   Supports in-memory byte streaming convert(pdf_bytes) for high-throughput web frameworks (FastAPI, Flask, Django) as well as file-to-file conversion convert_file(in_path, out_path) for batch jobs.
4. Clean OOXML Structure:
   Generates validated OpenXML Word documents with real paragraph hierarchies, styled headings, true tables (<w:tbl>), and dynamic page numbers (<w:fldSimple w:instr="PAGE"/>).

Honest & Transparent Limitations

Installation

pip install handlemyfile

Usage

1. File-to-File Conversion

import handlemyfile

# Simple 1-line conversion:
handlemyfile.convert_file("document.pdf", "output.docx")

# With real-time page progress callback:
def on_progress(current_page, total_pages, stage):
    print(f"Processing page {current_page}/{total_pages} [{stage}]")

handlemyfile.convert_file("large_document.pdf", "output.docx", on_progress=on_progress)

2. In-Memory Streaming (FastAPI / Flask Example)

Perfect for serverless functions, microservices, or web APIs where files shouldn't touch the disk:

from fastapi import FastAPI, UploadFile, Response
import handlemyfile

app = FastAPI()

@app.post("/convert")
async def convert_pdf(file: UploadFile):
    pdf_bytes = await file.read()
    
    # 100% in-memory conversion:
    docx_bytes = handlemyfile.convert(pdf_bytes)
    
    return Response(
        content=docx_bytes,
        media_type="application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document",
        headers={"Content-Disposition": f"attachment; filename={file.filename.replace('.pdf', '.docx')}"}
    )

3. Granular Typed Exceptions

Handle protected or corrupted files gracefully:

import handlemyfile

try:
    with open("secret_report.pdf", "rb") as f:
        docx_bytes = handlemyfile.convert(f.read())
except handlemyfile.PasswordProtectedError:
    print("Error: This PDF is encrypted or password-protected.")
except handlemyfile.InvalidPdfError:
    print("Error: The file is not a valid PDF document.")
except handlemyfile.CorruptPdfError as e:
    print(f"Error: Corrupted PDF stream: {e}")
except handlemyfile.EmptyDocumentError:
    print("Error: The document contains zero readable pages.")
except handlemyfile.HandleMyFileError as e:
    print(f"Conversion failed: {e}")

4. Standalone CLI

Installing via pip also provides a direct command-line tool:

handlemyfile input.pdf output.docx

License

MIT © HandleMyFile Contributors