Python - Convert tables from .doc / .docx-files to .xls

I'm tasked to convert a series of tables from .doc and .docx-files to .xls,

But have not managed to find an efficient way to do this. The tables may be in between other text.

I have looked into pywin32, xlwt and a couple of other libraries, but it seems like I have to go through a lot of steps.

Any tips for this table conversion from *.doc/*.docx to *.xls file?

Solution

I'm assuming you have too many documents for copy/paste, and seek a pragmatic solution for internal use. This solution:

Opens the file in Word in batch mode
You could write a little script to cut everything outside tags from the HTML
Saves the file in HTML, but using a .xls extension
The HTML file will open in Excel by default and you just click away the warning.

Create a macro in Word such as this:

Sub BatchSaveAs()
    ' Set output_dir appropriately
    ChangeFileOpenDirectory "output_dir"

    outDocName = Left(ActiveDocument.Name, Len(ActiveDocument.Name) - 4) & ".xls"

    ActiveDocument.SaveAs FileName:=outDocName, FileFormat:= _
        wdFormatFilteredHTML, LockComments:=False, Password:="", AddToRecentFiles _
        :=True, WritePassword:="", ReadOnlyRecommended:=False, EmbedTrueTypeFonts _
        :=False, SaveNativePictureFormat:=False, SaveFormsData:=False, _
        SaveAsAOCELetter:=False

    ActiveWindow.View.Type = wdWebView

    Application.Quit SaveChanges:=wdDoNotSaveChanges
End Sub

Now you can run Word in batch mode through a script which calls it for each input file:

winword file_name /mBatchSaveAs

(You may need to use full path names)

If the warning on opening the HTML / Excel files is not OK, you could write a little Python script to run Excel in batch mode. This shows how to run Excel in from Python:

Python com between python and excel

Some tricks I found useful: use finally for your clean-up; the code you need looks like VBA code, and if you're not good at VBA, record a macro to do what you want and modify for Python syntax.