DOCX Dual-Method Text Extraction

Extract text from Microsoft Word (.docx) files using either shell commands or Python's zipfile module, automatically selecting the most reliable method for your environment.

When to Use

• Need reliable DOCX text extraction in varying environments (containers, sandboxes, minimal images)
• Python environment may lack python-docx but has standard library access
• Shell utilities (unzip, sed) may be unavailable or restricted
• Want environment-aware fallback without manual intervention

Core Technique

DOCX files are ZIP archives containing XML files. This skill provides two extraction methods:

Method A (Shell): unzip -p + sed for tag stripping Method B (Python): zipfile module for archive access + string parsing

Environment Detection

Before extraction, detect which method will work:

# Quick shell method test
if unzip -v >/dev/null 2>&1; then
    echo "Shell method available"
else
    echo "Shell method unavailable, try Python"
fi

# Quick Python method test
python3 -c "import zipfile; print('Python method available')" 2>/dev/null

Method A: Shell-Based Extraction

Use when unzip and sed are available and the environment allows shell operations.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Verify the DOCX file exists

ls -la document.docx

2. Extract raw XML content

unzip -p document.docx word/document.xml

3. Strip XML tags from content

unzip -p document.docx word/document.xml | sed -e 's/<[^>]*>//g'

4. Clean up whitespace (optional)

unzip -p document.docx word/document.xml | \
  sed -e 's/<[^>]*>//g' | \
  sed -e 's/^[[:space:]]*//' -e 's/[[:space:]]*$//' | \
  sed -e '/^$/d'

5. Save extracted text to file

unzip -p document.docx word/document.xml | \
  sed -e 's/<[^>]*>//g' > output.txt

Reusable Shell Function