Extract text from first page of word document and use it as a folder name, then move the file inside that folder

Question

I have hundreds of word documents that needs to be processed but need to organized them first by versions in subfolders.

I basically get a drop of these word documents within a single folder and need to automate the organization moving forward before I get nuts.

So I have a script that basically creates a folder with the same name of the file and moves the file inside that folder, this part is done.

Now I need to go into each subfolder, and get the document version from within the first word page of each document, then create a sub-folder withe version number and move the word file into that subfolder.

The structure should be as follows (taking two folders as examples):

(Folder) Test
   (Subfolder) 12.0
        Test.docx

(Folder) Test1
   (Subfolder) 13.0
        Test1.docx

Luckily I was able to figure it out that "doc.paragraphs[6].text" will always return the version information in a single line as follows:

>>> doc.paragraphs[6].text
'Version Number: 12.0'

Would appreciate if someone can point me out to the right direction.

This is the script I have so far:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import glob, os, shutil, docx, sys

folder = sys.argv[1]

#print(folder)

for file_path in glob.glob(os.path.join(folder, '*.docx')):
    new_dir = file_path.rsplit('.', 1)[0]
    #print(new_dir)
    try:
        os.mkdir(os.path.join(folder, new_dir))
    except WindowsError:
        # Handle the case where the target dir already exist.
        pass
    shutil.move(file_path, os.path.join(new_dir, os.path.basename(file_path)))

Answer 1

Please see below the complete solution to your requirement.

Note: To know about re.search go through https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/python-regex-re-search-vs-re-findall/

import docx, os, glob, re, shutil
from pathlib import Path


def create_dir(path): # function to check if a given path exist and create one if not
    # Check whether the specified path exists or not
    is_exist = os.path.exists(path)

    # Create a new directory the path does not exist
    if not is_exist:
        os.makedirs(path)
    
folder = fr"C:\Users\rams\Documents\word_docs"  #my local folder

for file in glob.glob(os.path.join(folder, '*.docx')):
    # Test, Test1, Test2 in your structure
    main_folder = os.path.join(folder,Path(file).stem)  
    file_name = os.path.basename(file)
    
    # Get the first line from the docx
    doc = docx.Document(file).paragraphs[0].text 
    
    #  group(1) = Version Number: (.*)
    version_no = re.search("(Version Number: (.*))", doc).group(1) 
    
    # extract the number portion from version_no
    sub_folder = version_no.split(':')[1].strip() 
    
    # path to actual sub_folder with version_no
    sub_folder = os.path.join(main_folder, sub_folder)
    
    # destination path
    dest_file_path = os.path.join(sub_folder, file_name)
    
    for i in [main_folder,sub_folder]:
        create_dir(i) # function call
        
    # to move the file to the corresponding version folder (overwrite if exists)
    if os.path.exists(dest_file_path):
        os.remove(dest_file_path)
        shutil.move(file, sub_folder)
    else:
        shutil.move(file, sub_folder)
    

Before execution:

After Execution

Answer 2

So you have a script that creates a folder name being the file name and moves the file inside that folder. This part is done. OK.

Now you know how to get the document version from within the first word page of each document you need to create a sub-folder with this version number and move the word file into that sub-folder. This can be done using the same code as before replacing:

new_dir = file_path.rsplit('.', 1)[0]

with

document_dir  = os.path.dirname(file_path)
document_name = os.path.basename(file_path)
# check if the document is already in the right directory: 
assert os.path.basename(document_dir) == document_name.rsplit('.', 1)[0]
# here comes: doc = some_function_getting_the_doc_object(file_path) 
doc_version_tuple = doc.paragraphs[6].text.rsplit(': ', 1)
# check if doc_version_tuple has the right content: 
assert doc_version_tuple[0] == 'Version Number'
doc_version = doc_version_tuple[1]

new_dir = os.path.join(document_dir, doc_version)

Notice that you can also do both of the two steps in one run over the list of full path document names.

Notice further that running the script you posted in your question twice without the check:

assert os.path.basename(document_dir) != document_name.rsplit('.', 1)[0]

giving an Error if the script was already run and the documents are already in folders with the document name will destroy what you already achieved and you will need to write another script to reverse it.

The above is the reason why it would be a good idea to have a backup copy of all the documents you can use to re-create the directory with the documents in case something goes wrong. And ... it is generally a good idea to have always a backup copy if you work on files especially when using a self-written script.