I'm trying to copy a bunch of microsoft word documents that have
unicode characters into utf-8 text files. Everything works fine at
the beginning. The word documents get converted and new utf-8 text
files with the same name get created. And then I try to copy the data
and I keep on getting "TypeError: coercing to Unicode: need string or
buffer, instance found". I'm probably copying the word document
wrong. What can I do?
Thanks,
Patrick
import os, codecs, glob, shutil, win32com.client
from win32com.client import Dispatch
input = 'C:\\text_samples\\source\\*.doc'
output_dir = 'C:\\text_samples\\source\\output'
FileFormat=win32com.client.constants.wdFormatText
for doc in glob.glob(input):
doc_copy = shutil.copy(doc,output_dir)
WordApp = Dispatch("Word.Application")
WordApp.Visible = 1
WordApp.Documents.Open(doc)
WordApp.ActiveDocument.SaveAs(doc, FileFormat)
WordApp.ActiveDocument.Close()
WordApp.Quit()
for doc in glob.glob(input):
txt_split = os.path.splitext(doc)
txt_doc = txt_split[0] + '.txt'
txt_doc = codecs.open(txt_doc,'w','utf-8')
shutil.copyfile(doc,txt_doc)
> Hi all,
>
> I'm trying to copy a bunch of microsoft word documents that have
> unicode characters into utf-8 text files. Everything works fine at
> the beginning. The word documents get converted and new utf-8 text
> files with the same name get created. And then I try to copy the data
> and I keep on getting "TypeError: coercing to Unicode: need string or
> buffer, instance found". I'm probably copying the word document
> wrong. What can I do?
Always remember to provide the full traceback.
Where do you get the error? In the last line: shutil.copyfile?
If the file already contains the text in utf-8, and you just want to make
a copy, use shutil.copy as before.
(or, why not tell Word to save the file using the .txt extension in the
first place?)
> for doc in glob.glob(input):
> txt_split = os.path.splitext(doc)
> txt_doc = txt_split[0] + '.txt'
> txt_doc = codecs.open(txt_doc,'w','utf-8')
> shutil.copyfile(doc,txt_doc)
copyfile expects path names as arguments, not a
codecs-wrapped-file-like-object
--
Gabriel Genellina
for doc in glob.glob(input):
txt_split = os.path.splitext(doc)
txt_doc = txt_split[0] + '.txt'
txt_doc_dir = os.path.join(input_dir,txt_doc)
doc_dir = os.path.join(input_dir,doc)
shutil.copy(doc_dir,txt_doc_dir)
However, I still cannot read the unicode from the Word file. If take
out the first for-statement, I get a bunch of garbled text, which
isn't helpful. I would save them all manually, but I want to figure
out how to do it in Python, since I'm just beginning.
My intuition says the problem is with
FileFormat=win32com.client.constants.wdFormatText
because it converts fine to a text file, just not a utf-8 text file.
How can I modify this or is there another way to code this type of
file conversion from *.doc to *.txt with unicode characters?
Thanks
On Oct 21, 7:02 pm, "Gabriel Genellina" <gagsl-...@yahoo.com.ar>
wrote:
> En Sun, 21 Oct 2007 13:35:43 -0300, <patrick.wa...@gmail.com> escribi?:
> However, I still cannot read the unicode from the Word file. If take
> out the first for-statement, I get a bunch of garbled text, which
> isn't helpful. I would save them all manually, but I want to figure
> out how to do it in Python, since I'm just beginning.
>
> My intuition says the problem is with
>
> FileFormat=win32com.client.constants.wdFormatText
>
> because it converts fine to a text file, just not a utf-8 text file.
> How can I modify this or is there another way to code this type of
> file conversion from *.doc to *.txt with unicode characters?
Ah! I thought you were getting the right file format.
I can't test it now, but this KB document
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/209186/en-us
suggests you should use wdFormatUnicodeText when saving the document.
What the MS docs call "unicode" when dealing with files, is in general
utf16.
In this case, if you want to convert to utf8, the sequence would be:
f = open(original_filename, "rb")
udata = f.read().decode("utf16")
f.close()
f = open(new_filename, "wb")
f.write(udata.encode("utf8"))
f.close()
--
Gabriel Genellina
Judging from some internet searches, I'm not the only one having this
problem. For some reason Word can only save as .doc even though .txt
can support the utf8 format with all these characters.
Any ideas?
On Oct 22, 5:39 am, "Gabriel Genellina" <gagsl-...@yahoo.com.ar>
wrote:
> En Sun, 21 Oct 2007 15:32:57 -0300, <patrick.wa...@gmail.com> escribi?:
>
> > However, I still cannot read the unicode from the Word file. If take
> > out the first for-statement, I get a bunch of garbled text, which
> > isn't helpful. I would save them all manually, but I want to figure
> > out how to do it in Python, since I'm just beginning.
>
> > My intuition says the problem is with
>
> > FileFormat=win32com.client.constants.wdFormatText
>
> > because it converts fine to a text file, just not a utf-8 text file.
> > How can I modify this or is there another way to code this type of
> > file conversion from *.doc to *.txt with unicode characters?
>
> Ah! I thought you were getting the right file format.
> I can't test it now, but this KB documenthttp://support.microsoft.com/kb/209186/en-us