docx
A ruby library/gem for interacting with .docx
files. currently capabilities include reading paragraphs/bookmarks, inserting text at bookmarks, reading tables/rows/columns/cells and saving the document.
Usage
Prerequisites
- Ruby 2.6 or later
Install
Add the following line to your application's Gemfile:
gem 'docx'
And then execute:
bundle install
Or install it yourself as:
gem install docx
Reading
require 'docx'
# Create a Docx::Document object for our existing docx file
doc = Docx::Document.open('example.docx')
# Retrieve and display paragraphs
doc.paragraphs.each do |p|
puts p
end
# Retrieve and display bookmarks, returned as hash with bookmark names as keys and objects as values
doc.bookmarks.each_pair do |bookmark_name, bookmark_object|
puts bookmark_name
end
Don't have a local file but a buffer? Docx handles those to:
require 'docx'
# Create a Docx::Document object from a remote file
doc = Docx::Document.open(buffer)
# Everything about reading is the same as shown above
Rendering html
require 'docx'
# Retrieve and display paragraphs as html
doc = Docx::Document.open('example.docx')
doc.paragraphs.each do |p|
puts p.to_html
end
Reading tables
require 'docx'
# Create a Docx::Document object for our existing docx file
doc = Docx::Document.open('tables.docx')
first_table = doc.tables[0]
puts first_table.row_count
puts first_table.column_count
puts first_table.rows[0].cells[0].text
puts first_table.columns[0].cells[0].text
# Iterate through tables
doc.tables.each do |table|
table.rows.each do |row| # Row-based iteration
row.cells.each do |cell|
puts cell.text
end
end
table.columns.each do |column| # Column-based iteration
column.cells.each do |cell|
puts cell.text
end
end
end
Writing
require 'docx'
# Create a Docx::Document object for our existing docx file
doc = Docx::Document.open('example.docx')
# Insert a single line of text after one of our bookmarks
doc.bookmarks['example_bookmark'].insert_text_after("Hello world.")
# Insert multiple lines of text at our bookmark
doc.bookmarks['example_bookmark_2'].insert_multiple_lines_after(['Hello', 'World', 'foo'])
# Remove paragraphs
doc.paragraphs.each do |p|
p.remove! if p.to_s =~ /TODO/
end
# Substitute text, preserving formatting
doc.paragraphs.each do |p|
p.each_text_run do |tr|
tr.substitute('_placeholder_', 'replacement value')
end
end
# Save document to specified path
doc.save('example-edited.docx')
Writing to tables
require 'docx'
# Create a Docx::Document object for our existing docx file
doc = Docx::Document.open('tables.docx')
# Iterate over each table
doc.tables.each do |table|
last_row = table.rows.last
# Copy last row and insert a new one before last row
new_row = last_row.copy
new_row.insert_before(last_row)
# Substitute text in each cell of this new row
new_row.cells.each do |cell|
cell.paragraphs.each do |paragraph|
paragraph.each_text_run do |text|
text.substitute('_placeholder_', 'replacement value')
end
end
end
end
doc.save('tables-edited.docx')
Advanced
require 'docx'
d = Docx::Document.open('example.docx')
# The Nokogiri::XML::Node on which an element is based can be accessed using #node
d.paragraphs.each do |p|
puts p.node.inspect
end
# The #xpath and #at_xpath methods are delegated to the node from the element, saving a step
p_element = d.paragraphs.first
p_children = p_element.xpath("//child::*") # selects all children
p_child = p_element.at_xpath("//child::*") # selects first child
Development
todo
- Calculate element formatting based on values present in element properties as well as properties inherited from parents
- Default formatting of inserted elements to inherited values
- Implement formattable elements.
- Implement styles.
- Easier multi-line text insertion at a single bookmark (inserting paragraph nodes after the one containing the bookmark)