unhwp

High-performance Python library for extracting HWP/HWPX Korean word processor documents to Markdown.

Installation

pip install unhwp

Quick Start

import unhwp

# Simple conversion
markdown = unhwp.to_markdown("document.hwp")
print(markdown)

# Extract plain text
text = unhwp.extract_text("document.hwp")

# Full parsing with images
with unhwp.parse("document.hwp") as result:
    print(result.markdown)
    print(f"Sections: {result.section_count}")
    print(f"Paragraphs: {result.paragraph_count}")

    # Save images
    for img in result.images:
        img.save(f"output/{img.name}")

Handling Failures

UnhwpError.kind says why a call failed, so you can react to the reason instead of matching on message text:

from unhwp import ErrorKind, ParseError

try:
    with unhwp.parse(path) as result:
        print(result.markdown)
except ParseError as err:
    if err.kind in (ErrorKind.OLE_CONTAINER, ErrorKind.ZIP_ARCHIVE):
        print("The file is damaged.")
    elif err.kind in (ErrorKind.UNKNOWN_FORMAT, ErrorKind.UNSUPPORTED_FORMAT):
        print("Not a supported HWP/HWPX document.")
    elif err.kind in (ErrorKind.ENCRYPTED, ErrorKind.DISTRIBUTION_RESTRICTED):
        print("The document cannot be opened without authorization.")
    else:
        # Also the right branch for a reason this build has no name for.
        print(f"Extraction failed ({err.kind}): {err}")

The numbers behind ErrorKind are a stable ABI contract: a new reason takes the next free number and existing ones are never renumbered. Always keep a final else — an unrecognised value arrives as a plain int rather than an ErrorKind, so that a newer native library stays usable. kind is ErrorKind.OTHER for failures raised by the wrapper itself, and never ErrorKind.NONE (which means success).

Features

• Fast: Native Rust library with zero-copy parsing
• Complete: Extracts text, tables, images, and document structure
• Clean Output: Optional cleanup pipeline for polished Markdown
• Format Support: HWP 5.0, HWPX, and HWP 3.x (legacy)

API Reference

Functions

to_markdown(path) -> str

Convert an HWP/HWPX document to Markdown.

markdown = unhwp.to_markdown("document.hwp")

to_markdown_with_cleanup(path, cleanup_options=None) -> str

Convert with optional cleanup.

markdown = unhwp.to_markdown_with_cleanup(
    "document.hwp",
    cleanup_options=unhwp.CleanupOptions.aggressive()
)

extract_text(path) -> str

Extract plain text content.

text = unhwp.extract_text("document.hwp")

parse(path, render_options=None) -> ParseResult

Parse a document with full access to content and images.

with unhwp.parse("document.hwp") as result:
    print(result.markdown)
    print(result.text)
    for img in result.images:
        print(img.name, len(img.data))

detect_format(path) -> int

Detect the document format.

fmt = unhwp.detect_format("document.hwp")
if fmt == unhwp.FORMAT_HWP5:
    print("HWP 5.0 format")
elif fmt == unhwp.FORMAT_HWPX:
    print("HWPX format")

Classes

ParseResult

What parse() and parse_bytes() return; use it as a context manager or call close().

• markdown, text, plain_text, json - The document rendered
• section_count, image_count, title, author - About the document
• images, iter_images() - Embedded images
• get_tables(tsv=False) - Every table as CSV (RFC 4180), or tab-separated with tsv=True, in reading order: {"section", "index", "text"} — the section's number (from 1), the table's place among that section's tables (from 1), and the text. A merged cell's text is in its top-left position and the positions it covers are empty, so every record has the same number of fields: pandas.read_csv(io.StringIO(t["text"])) reads one.

RenderOptions

Options for Markdown rendering.

opts = unhwp.RenderOptions(
    include_frontmatter=True,
    image_path_prefix="images/",
    preserve_line_breaks=False,
)

CleanupOptions

Options for output cleanup.

# Presets
opts = unhwp.CleanupOptions.minimal()
opts = unhwp.CleanupOptions.default()
opts = unhwp.CleanupOptions.aggressive()
opts = unhwp.CleanupOptions.disabled()

# Custom
opts = unhwp.CleanupOptions(
    enabled=True,
    preset=1,
    detect_mojibake=True,
)

Constants

• FORMAT_UNKNOWN - Unknown format
• FORMAT_HWP5 - HWP 5.0 binary format
• FORMAT_HWPX - HWPX XML format
• FORMAT_HWP3 - HWP 3.x legacy format

Platform Support

• Windows (x64)
• Linux (x64)
• macOS (x64, ARM64)

Native library

The package ships the native library for your platform. To load another build of it — one you compiled from the Rust crate, say — set UNHWP_LIB_PATH to that file. A path that names no file is an error: importing raises OSError naming the path, rather than quietly loading the packaged library instead.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

Links

• GitHub Repository
• Rust Crate
• NuGet Package