pyantiword

A Python wrapper for antiword with the antiword binary and data files bundled for easy use in any environment.

Features

• Bundles the antiword binary and required data files
• No external dependencies or system requirements
• Simple Python interface to extract text from .doc (Microsoft Word) files

Installation

pip install pyantiword

Usage

from pyantiword.antiword_wrapper import extract_text

# Extract text from a .doc file
text = extract_text("path/to/document.doc")
print(text)

Requirements

• Python 3.6+
• No external dependencies

How it works

This package includes the antiword binary and its required data files. When you install pyantiword, everything you need is included—no need to install antiword separately.

Building and Publishing

To be able to build, for now, the build_antiword.sh script only only guaranteed to work on Ubuntu, with Python 3.6 and above. In the future, we might make this more stable with a mandatory virtual environment step, or a docker container.

To build and publish pyantiword to PyPI, follow these steps:

1. Build the antiword binary

Before packaging, ensure the antiword binary and data files are present by running:

./build_antiword.sh

2. Install build tools

If you haven't already, install the required Python packaging tools:

pip install --upgrade build twine

3. Build the package

This will create both a source distribution and a wheel in the dist/ directory:

python -m build

4. Publish to PyPI

Upload the package to PyPI using Twine:

twine upload dist/*

You will need a PyPI account and your credentials to complete this step. Your credentials being, most likely, your API token.

Note:
Always ensure the antiword binary and data files are up-to-date in the pyantiword/ directory before building the package.

License

MIT License

Author

Vitor Hugo Moreira Reis

Links

• PyPI Project
• antiword homepage (on web archive)