How to read text from .doc and .docx files in Azure Blob Storage with Python?

Question

Hello,

Is there a way to read the content of .docx files—and more importantly, .doc files—stored in Azure Blob Storage directly in Python without having to download them locally? Handling .doc files locally can be quite cumbersome, so I'm curious how Azure Blob Storage addresses this challenge.

Thank you!

Answer 1

@Adam Kupiec You can read the content of .docx and .doc files stored in Azure Blob Storage directly in Python without downloading them locally. This can be achieved by using the Azure Storage Blob SDK for Python, which allows you to stream the content of the files directly into memory.

Here's a general approach to achieve this:

Install the Azure Storage Blob SDK: You need to install the Azure Storage Blob SDK for Python. You can do this using pip:

pip install azure-storage-blob

Authenticate and Access the Blob Storage: Use the SDK to authenticate and access the blob storage container where your files are stored. Here's an example code snippet to read the content of a .docx file:

from azure.storage.blob import BlobServiceClient
from io import BytesIO
import docx

# Replace with your connection string and container name
connection_string = "your_connection_string"
container_name = "your_container_name"
blob_name = "your_file.docx"

# Create a BlobServiceClient
blob_service_client = BlobServiceClient.from_connection_string(connection_string)
container_client = blob_service_client.get_container_client(container_name)
blob_client = container_client.get_blob_client(blob_name)

# Read the blob content into memory
stream = BytesIO()
blob_client.download_blob().readinto(stream)
stream.seek(0)

# Use python-docx to read the content of the .docx file
doc = docx.Document(stream)
for paragraph in doc.paragraphs:
    print(paragraph.text)

Handling .doc Files: For .doc files, you can use the python-docx library to read .docx files, but for .doc files, you might need to use the pywin32 library or other libraries like pypandoc to convert .doc files to .docx format before reading them.

This approach allows you to read the content of the files directly from Azure Blob Storage into memory, avoiding the need to download them locally.

References

Access azure blob storage files with python without downloading

Read Big Azure Blob Storage file – Best practices with examples

Please let us know if you have any further queries. I’m happy to assist you further.    

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Answer 2

Hi swarmttied,
Apologies for the delayed response, "file is not a valid zip file" error typically occurs because .docx files are essentially zip files containing XML and other resources. If the file structure is corrupted or not properly saved, this error can arise
When opening the file, make sure to open it in binary mode. This is crucial for reading .docx files correctly. Ensure that you are using the latest versions of python-docx and other related libraries. Sometimes, bugs are fixed in newer releases.
If the issue persists, you can try using the zipfile module to manually check the contents of the .docx file
Ensure that you are correctly using BytesIO when reading from Azure Blob Storage, If the problem persists, it might be worth checking the specific version of Word you are using and any potential compatibility issues with python-docx .

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If you are still facing issues, please provide some screenshots and details in the "comments" and I would be happy to help you. Thank you again for your time and patience throughout this issue.