How to search and replace a Text String in a Word DOCX in Python

Search and replace is such a common action that we tend to take it for granted. This will quickly change if you have ever tried setting it up from the ground up, as it can rapidly devolve into messy code and heartache. Today’s solution will skip right over that whole pitfall.

We will be using the Cloudmersive Document/Convert API for this, so installing the client is our first step:

pip install cloudmersive-convert-api-client

Using the API itself is pretty straightforward. We start by authorizing our free key, then instancing the API class. Finally, call edit_document_docx_replace from that instance.

from __future__ import print_function
import time
import cloudmersive_convert_api_client
from cloudmersive_convert_api_client.rest import ApiException
from pprint import pprint
# Configure API key authorization: Apikey
configuration = cloudmersive_convert_api_client.Configuration()
configuration.api_key['Apikey'] = 'YOUR_API_KEY'
# Uncomment below to setup prefix (e.g. Bearer) for API key, if needed
# configuration.api_key_prefix['Apikey'] = 'Bearer'
# create an instance of the API class
api_instance = cloudmersive_convert_api_client.EditDocumentApi(cloudmersive_convert_api_client.ApiClient(configuration))
req_config = cloudmersive_convert_api_client.ReplaceStringRequest() # ReplaceStringRequest | Document string replacement configuration input
try:
# Replace string in Word DOCX document
api_response = api_instance.edit_document_docx_replace(req_config)
pprint(api_response)
except ApiException as e:
print("Exception when calling EditDocumentApi->edit_document_docx_replace: %s\n" % e)

And we are officially walking on easy street. That’s right, all done! If you look through the rest of this library, you will see functions for everything from merging documents to converting between formats.