extension: support .docm (macro-enabled) Word files

[JosephHardy91]

This module is great, but it doesn't currently work with docm files or macros.

Add in a way to both import macros into the VBProject and save docm files.

Currently, the only way to do this is pywin32 and if you both import a macro and save as docm for 5 files, it takes about 30 sec-1 minute which is obviously unacceptable.

Your module is perfectly positioned to take care of this problem and I'd hope to see an improvement sometime in the future.

Thanks!

[scanny]

Do you have an example of a .docm file you can share? (You can just drag and drop it in the comment box in response.)

I had understood that macros were stored in a binary format, so I'm not sure how you'd be able to generate them in Python, even if you could "import" them.

But I'll take a look at the file structure and see what we see.

[ethack]

I would like to see this implemented as well. I've attached a sample document containing a Hello World macro.

Since Github wouldn't let me upload the document as-is, I changed the extension to ".zip".

MacroTest.docm.zip

For reference, here is the macro I put in the document:

Sub AutoOpen()
    MsgBox ("Hello, World!")
End Sub

[scanny]

Thanks @ethack, just the ticket :)

Here's what the innards look like:

$ unzip -l MacroTest.docm                                                                                                                            Archive:  MacroTest.docm
  Length     Date   Time    Name
 --------    ----   ----    ----
     2485  01-01-80 00:00   [Content_Types].xml
      590  01-01-80 00:00   _rels/.rels
     1976  01-01-80 00:00   word/_rels/document.xml.rels
     1977  01-01-80 00:00   word/document.xml
     1295  01-01-80 00:00   word/header3.xml
     1295  01-01-80 00:00   word/footer2.xml
     1295  01-01-80 00:00   word/footer1.xml
     1295  01-01-80 00:00   word/header2.xml
     1295  01-01-80 00:00   word/header1.xml
     1675  01-01-80 00:00   word/endnotes.xml
     1681  01-01-80 00:00   word/footnotes.xml
     1295  01-01-80 00:00   word/footer3.xml
     6795  01-01-80 00:00   word/theme/theme1.xml
      277  01-01-80 00:00   word/_rels/vbaProject.bin.rels
     9728  01-01-80 00:00   word/vbaProject.bin
     2699  01-01-80 00:00   word/settings.xml
     1367  01-01-80 00:00   word/vbaData.xml
      497  01-01-80 00:00   word/webSettings.xml
    29856  01-01-80 00:00   word/styles.xml
      712  01-01-80 00:00   docProps/app.xml
      727  01-01-80 00:00   docProps/core.xml
     1261  01-01-80 00:00   word/fontTable.xml
 --------                   -------
    72073                   22 files

Note the item word/vbaProject.bin. I've had a quick look, and no surprise, but it's definitely not plain text.

The other two files of interest are vbaProject.bin.rels:

$ opc browse MacroTest.docm vbaProject.bin.rels                                                                                                      
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8' standalone='yes'?>
<Relationships xmlns="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/package/2006/relationships">
  <Relationship Id="x" Type="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/relationships/wordVbaData" Target="vbaData.xml"/>
</Relationships>

... and vbaData.xml:

$ opc browse MacroTest.docm word/vbaData.xml                                                                                                         <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8' standalone='yes'?>
<wne:vbaSuppData
    xmlns:m="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/math"
    xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
    xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"
    xmlns:r="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships"
    xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml"
    xmlns:w10="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word"
    xmlns:w14="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordml"
    xmlns:w15="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2012/wordml"
    xmlns:w="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main"
    xmlns:wne="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2006/wordml"
    xmlns:wp14="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingDrawing"
    xmlns:wp="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/wordprocessingDrawing"
    xmlns:wpc="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingCanvas"
    xmlns:wpg="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingGroup"
    xmlns:wpi="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingInk"
    xmlns:wps="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingShape"
    mc:Ignorable="w14 w15 wp14"
    >
  <wne:mcds>
    <wne:mcd wne:macroName="PROJECT.THISDOCUMENT.AUTOOPEN" wne:name="Project.ThisDocument.AutoOpen" wne:bEncrypt="00" wne:cmg="56"/>
  </wne:mcds>
</wne:vbaSuppData>

The relationships one would be straightforward, and the data one as well I suppose, assuming there's a schema or other documentation out there, or someone willing to do the reverse engineering to determine what goes in there.

But I don't know how we'd do the binary bit. I would expect it's proprietary and undocumented, but haven't really looked into it.

Do you have any idea of what functionality might be useful and how it might be implemented?

[ethack]

I'm still doing research into this, but thought I'd share what I have so far. It appears the format is documented (how well, I have yet to determine) and some Python tools exist to parse it already.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc313094%28v=office.12%29.aspx
http://www.decalage.info/vba_tools

The functionality I'd be looking for specifically would be to pass a string that contains the raw VBA source code and have a function that inserts it into a Word document. I've long been wanting a way to programmatically generate VBA source code and insert it into a document. Personally, this is useful to me if I want to generate a bunch of documents that are similar and only differ with say a single variable in the macro code.

[scanny]

This is very interesting @ethack :)

From time to time the only way to discover how the MS API for Word (or PowerPoint for python-pptx) behaves is to experiment. And this is a bit of a pain given what it takes to do that when you're not running natively on Windows. We often need to do this while designing a new API element.

So it would be awesome to be able to take some plain-text code and be able to produce a test docx that runs that code once opened in Windows.

Based on what you sent, I'm thinking what we would need in python-docx (and could probably have in python-pptx as well), is a way to take an arbitrary "black-box" VBA binary and lodge it in the right place in the package, perhaps adding the right relationships and possibly the vbaData.xml. The VBA black-box could be written with one of the tools you pointed toward.

Let us know as you come up with more in your research. If we could get some kind of filthy hack or even hand-assembled file that proves the concept we'll definitely be interested in designing API support for this. We'd probably need a contributor to do the needful, so you might consider if you're willing to play that role for this one, let me know if you are :)

[scanny]

Hi Guys, just a request for some input if you will.

Adding support so you can open and save the .docm format (but not access or manipulate the macro-related parts) would be a relatively modest undertaking.

How much benefit do you see it that?

The likelihood that would be implemented in the "sooner" time frame is a lot higher I expect.

[ethack]

Personally, I don't have a need for that use case.

[scanny]

ok, thanks @ethack :)

[JosephHardy91]

Yes, this would be helpful to me. My macro is a one size fits all, so as long as I have a template file(which I do), opening a docm and saving it with macro contents intact would work perfectly well in my case. And there is also the requirement that it be editable like any docx file.

Thanks

[scanny]

okay, good to know, thanks @blindidiot91 :)

I'll look to scope this one out.

[mustard007]

Hi!
I'm interested in that too.

Thanks!

[ozgurpolat]

Hi,

I am wondering if there is any progress/decision made on this topic. I rally need this extension for the project I am working on. We have some template files and they have some macros in them, if we save them as docx then we lose the macros and they are no longer useful to us. It would be very helpful to modify the document (without modifying the macros) as scanny describes. I found this link #212 where it is hinted that it might be possible to add this feature to a local copy of python-docx but I am not sure how I can implement this. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[scanny]

Where do you run into a problem? Be specific and include actual error messages with trace back if any.