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

Writing and Manipulating Styles

require 'docx'

d = Docx::Document.open('example.docx')
existing_style = d.styles_configuration.style_of("Heading 1")
existing_style.font_color = "000000"

# see attributes below
new_style = d.styles_configuration.add_style("Red", name: "Red", font_color: "FF0000", font_size: 20)
new_style.bold = true

d.paragraphs.each do |p|
  p.style = "Red"
end

d.paragraphs.each do |p|
  p.style = "Heading 1"
end

d.styles_configuration.remove_style("Red")

Style Attributes

The following is a list of attributes and what they control within the style.

• id: The unique identifier of the style. (required)
• name: The human-readable name of the style. (required)
• type: Indicates the type of the style (e.g., paragraph, character).
• keep_next: Boolean value controlling whether to keep a paragraph and the next one on the same page. Valid values: true/false.
• keep_lines: Boolean value specifying whether to keep all lines of a paragraph together on one page. Valid values: true/false.
• page_break_before: Boolean value indicating whether to insert a page break before the paragraph. Valid values: true/false.
• widow_control: Boolean value controlling widow and orphan lines in a paragraph. Valid values: true/false.
• shading_style: Defines the shading pattern style.
• shading_color: Specifies the color of the shading pattern. Valid values: Hex color codes.
• shading_fill: Indicates the background fill color of shading.
• suppress_auto_hyphens: Boolean value controlling automatic hyphenation. Valid values: true/false.
• bidirectional_text: Boolean value indicating if the paragraph contains bidirectional text. Valid values: true/false.
• spacing_before: Defines the spacing before a paragraph.
• spacing_after: Specifies the spacing after a paragraph.
• line_spacing: Indicates the line spacing of a paragraph.
• line_rule: Defines how line spacing is calculated.
• indent_left: Sets the left indentation of a paragraph.
• indent_right: Specifies the right indentation of a paragraph.
• indent_first_line: Indicates the first line indentation of a paragraph.
• align: Controls the text alignment within a paragraph.
• font: Sets the font for different scripts (ASCII, complex script, East Asian, etc.).
• font_ascii: Specifies the font for ASCII characters.
• font_cs: Indicates the font for complex script characters.
• font_hAnsi: Sets the font for high ANSI characters.
• font_eastAsia: Specifies the font for East Asian characters.
• bold: Boolean value controlling bold formatting. Valid values: true/false.
• italic: Boolean value indicating italic formatting. Valid values: true/false.
• caps: Boolean value controlling capitalization. Valid values: true/false.
• small_caps: Boolean value specifying small capital letters. Valid values: true/false.
• strike: Boolean value indicating strikethrough formatting. Valid values: true/false.
• double_strike: Boolean value defining double strikethrough formatting. Valid values: true/false.
• outline: Boolean value specifying outline effects. Valid values: true/false.
• outline_level: Indicates the outline level in a document's hierarchy.
• font_color: Sets the text color. Valid values: Hex color codes.
• font_size: Controls the font size.
• font_size_cs: Specifies the font size for complex script characters.
• underline_style: Indicates the style of underlining.
• underline_color: Specifies the color of the underline. Valid values: Hex color codes.
• spacing: Controls character spacing.
• kerning: Sets the space between characters.
• position: Controls the position of characters (superscript/subscript).
• text_fill_color: Sets the fill color of text. Valid values: Hex color codes.
• vertical_alignment: Controls the vertical alignment of text within a line.
• lang: Specifies the language tag for the text.

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.
• Easier multi-line text insertion at a single bookmark (inserting paragraph nodes after the one containing the bookmark)