Working with Page Orientations and Pagination Properties - Python .docx Module

Prerequisite: Working with .docx module

Word documents contain formatted text wrapped within three object levels. The Lowest level- run objects, middle level- paragraph objects, and highest level- document object. So, we cannot work with these documents using normal text editors. But, we can manipulate these word documents in python using the python-docx module. Pip command to install this module is:

pip install python-docx

Python docx module allows users to manipulate docs by either manipulating the existing one or creating a new empty document and manipulating it. It is a powerful tool as it helps you to manipulate the document to a very large extend.

Page Orientations

To change the orientation of the word document we make use of the WD_ORIENT of the docx.enum.section module. And to call or set the orientation of the section we will use the orientation method of the section class.

Syntax:

section.orientation = WD_ORIENT.[Orientation Type]

There are two types of orientations possible.

Note:

• The portrait is the default orientation.
• Orientation methods can only be used upon sections so to use one you have to first select a section of the Word document.

Example 1: Printing the default orientation of the Word document.

# Import docx NOT python-docx
import docx

# Create an instance of a word document
doc = docx.Document()

# Selecting a section of the document
section = doc.sections[0]

# Printing the default orientation.
print("Default Orientation:", section.orientation)

Output:

Default Orientation: PORTRAIT (0)

Example 2: Changing the orientation to the landscape from default.

# Import docx NOT python-docx
import docx
from docx.enum.section import WD_ORIENT

# Create an instance of a word document
doc = docx.Document()

# Selecting a section of the document
section = doc.sections[0]

# Printing the default orientation.
print("Default Orientation:",
      section.orientation)

# Changing the orientation to landscape
section.orientation = WD_ORIENT.LANDSCAPE

# Printing the new orientation.
print("New Orientation:",
      section.orientation)

Output:

Default Orientation: PORTRAIT (0)
New Orientation: LANDSCAPE (1)

Pagination Properties

Pagination properties are the properties or styles which control the behavior of the paragraphs near the page boundaries. There are four styles of add_paragraph() function in .docx module which comes under this category.

Syntax:

doc.add_paragraph(String s, style=None)

Parameters:

• String s: It is the string data that is to be added as a paragraph. This string can contain newline character '\n', tabs '\t' or a carriage return character '\r'.
• Style: It is used to set style.

Styles that come under pagination properties are:

Note: All the four styles can either be set to true, false, or none. True means "on", False means "off" and None means the property is inherited from the style hierarchy.

Example 3: Using keep_together on a paragraph in a Word document.

# Import docx NOT python-docx
import docx

# Create an instance of a word document
doc = docx.Document()

# Add a Title to the document 
doc.add_heading('GeeksForGeeks', 0)

# Adding paragraph
para = doc.add_paragraph('GeeksforGeeks is a Computer Science portal for geeks.')

# Setting keep_together as True
para.keep_together = True

# Now save the document to a location 
doc.save('gfg.docx')

Output:

Example 4: Using keep_with_next on a paragraph in a word document.

# Import docx NOT python-docx
import docx

# Create an instance of a word document
doc = docx.Document()

# Add a Title to the document 
doc.add_heading('GeeksForGeeks', 0)

# Adding paragraph
para = doc.add_paragraph('GeeksforGeeks is a Computer Science portal for geeks.')

# Setting keep_with_next as True
para.keep_with_next = True

# Now save the document to a location 
doc.save('gfg.docx')

Output:

Example 5: Using page_break_before on a paragraph in a word document.

# Import docx NOT python-docx
import docx

# Create an instance of a word document
doc = docx.Document()

# Add a Title to the document 
doc.add_heading('GeeksForGeeks', 0)

# Adding paragraph
para = doc.add_paragraph('GeeksforGeeks is a Computer Science portal for geeks.')

# Setting page_break_before as True
para.page_break_before = True

# Now save the document to a location 
doc.save('gfg.docx')

Output:

Example 6: Using widow_control on a paragraph in a Word document.

# Import docx NOT python-docx
import docx

# Create an instance of a word document
doc = docx.Document()

# Add a Title to the document 
doc.add_heading('GeeksForGeeks', 0)

# Adding paragraph
para = doc.add_paragraph('GeeksforGeeks is a Computer Science portal for geeks.')

# Setting widow_control as True
para.widow_control = True

# Now save the document to a location 
doc.save('gfg.docx')

Output:

aditya_taparia

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Article Tags :

• Technical Scripter
• Python
• Technical Scripter 2020
• Python Docx-module

Practice Tags :

• python