Author’s Note: As I write this series, I’m learning these concepts alongside you! If you spot any mistakes or have suggestions for improvement, please let me know. Programming is a continuous learning process, and I’m always looking to make these tutorials clearer and more helpful for fellow beginners.

Key Insight: Python makes document automation incredibly easy with just a few lines of code. Perfect for beginners just like me who want to automate boring tasks!

Working with PDF and Word documents in Python opens up a world of automation possibilities for beginner programmers. Whether you need to extract text from dozens of PDF files (like I need t) or automatically generate Word reports, Python provides simple, powerful tools to handle these tasks efficiently.

What Can You Accomplish?

With Python’s document manipulation capabilities, you can:

📄 Extract text from PDF files (like meeting minutes or reports)
🔗 Combine multiple PDF files into one document
🔄 Rotate pages that were scanned sideways
📝 Create new Word documents automatically
✏️ Read and modify existing Word files
🔒 Handle password-protected PDFs

Getting Started: Installing the Libraries

Before diving into code, you’ll need to install two essential libraries. Open your command prompt or terminal and type:

pip install PyPDF2==1.26.0
pip install python-docx

Working with PDF Files Using PyPDF2

Reading Text from a PDF

Let’s start with the most common task - extracting text from a PDF :

import PyPDF2
import os

# Get current working directory
print("Current Working Directory:", os.getcwd())

# Open the PDF file in binary read mode
pdfFileObj = open('some_pdf.pdf', 'rb')
pdfReader = PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(pdfFileObj)

# Get the first page (Python counts from 0)
pageObj = pdfReader.getPage(0)

# Extract the text
text = pageObj.extractText()
print(text)

# Always close the file
pdfFileObj.close()

What’s happening here?

'rb' means “read binary” - PDFs aren’t text files, so we need binary mode
getPage(0) gets the first page (remember, Python starts counting at 0)
extractText() pulls out all the text from that page as a string

Checking PDF Information

Want to know how many pages are in a PDF? Here’s how:

import PyPDF2

pdfFileObj = open('some_pdf.pdf', 'rb')
pdfReader = PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(pdfFileObj)
print(f"Number of pages: {pdfReader.numPages}")
pdfFileObj.close()

Combining Multiple PDFs

Need to merge several PDF files? This is perfect for combining monthly reports :

import PyPDF2

# Open both PDF files
pdf1File = open('january_report.pdf', 'rb')
pdf2File = open('february_report.pdf', 'rb')

# Create readers for each file
pdf1Reader = PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(pdf1File)
pdf2Reader = PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(pdf2File)

# Create a writer to build the new PDF
pdfWriter = PyPDF2.PdfFileWriter()

# Add all pages from first PDF
for pageNum in range(pdf1Reader.numPages):
    pageObj = pdf1Reader.getPage(pageNum)
    pdfWriter.addPage(pageObj)

# Add all pages from second PDF
for pageNum in range(pdf2Reader.numPages):
    pageObj = pdf2Reader.getPage(pageNum)
    pdfWriter.addPage(pageObj)

# Save the combined PDF
pdfOutputFile = open('combined_reports.pdf', 'wb')
pdfWriter.write(pdfOutputFile)
pdfOutputFile.close()
pdf1File.close()
pdf2File.close()

Working with Word Documents Using python-docx

Creating a New Word Document

Creating Word documents from scratch is surprisingly simple :

import docx

# Create a new document
document = docx.Document()

# Add a heading
document.add_heading('My Automated Report', 0)

# Add a paragraph
document.add_paragraph('This document was created automatically with Python!')

# Save the document
document.save(r'C:/Users/ssanders/Documents/GitHub/steveondata/posts/2025-09-24/my_report.docx')

What’s happening here?

Document() creates a blank Word document
add_heading('text', 0) adds a title (0 is the biggest heading size)
add_paragraph('text') adds regular text
save('filename.docx') writes the document to your computer

Reading an Existing Word Document

Need to extract text from a Word document? Here’s how :

import docx

# Open an existing document
doc = docx.Document(r'C:/Users/ssanders/Documents/GitHub/steveondata/posts/2025-09-24/my_report.docx')

# Print each paragraph
for para in doc.paragraphs:
    print(para.text)

My Automated Report
This document was created automatically with Python!

This code opens a Word document and prints out each paragraph, one by one.

Adding Content to an Existing Document

You can also modify existing documents:

from docx import Document

# Open the template
doc = Document(r'C:/Users/ssanders/Documents/GitHub/steveondata/posts/2025-09-24/my_report.docx')

# Add new content
doc.add_paragraph('New agenda item added automatically.')

# Save with a new name
doc.save(r'C:/Users/ssanders/Documents/GitHub/steveondata/posts/2025-09-24/updated_my_report.docx')

Practical Real-World Applications

Use Case	Example	Benefit
Students	Extract text from research PDFs for note-taking	Save hours of manual copying
Office Workers	Combine weekly reports into monthly summaries	Eliminate repetitive tasks
Small Businesses	Automatically generate invoices or contracts	Reduce manual errors
Researchers	Process large collections of documents	Analyze data at scale

Your Turn! Practice Exercise

Challenge: Create a Python script that:

Opens a Word document
Adds today’s date as a heading
Adds a paragraph with your name
Saves it as a new file

Click here for Solution!

from docx import Document
from datetime import date

# Create new document
doc = Document()

# Add today's date as heading
today = date.today()
doc.add_heading(f'Report for {today}', 0)

# Add paragraph with name
doc.add_paragraph('Created by: [Your Name Here]')

# Save the document
doc.save(f'C:/Users/ssanders/Documents/GitHub/steveondata/posts/2025-09-24/daily_report_{today}.docx')

print("Document created successfully!")

Document created successfully!

Key Takeaways

Quick Reference Points:

Use PyPDF2 for reading and manipulating PDF files
Use python-docx for creating and editing Word documents
Always open PDFs in binary mode ('rb')
Remember Python uses zero-based indexing (first page is 0)
Close files after opening them to free up memory
These tools are perfect for automating repetitive tasks

What’s Next?

Try these examples with your own PDF and Word files. Start small - maybe extract text from a single PDF or create a simple Word document. Once you’re comfortable, you can combine these techniques to build powerful document automation tools.

The beauty of working with PDF and Word documents in Python is that once you master these basics, you can automate almost any document-related task!

References

Happy Coding! 🚀

You can connect with me at any one of the below:

Telegram Channel here: https://t.me/steveondata

LinkedIn Network here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/spsanderson/

Mastadon Social here: https://mstdn.social/@stevensanderson

RStats Network here: https://rstats.me/@spsanderson

GitHub Network here: https://github.com/spsanderson

Bluesky Network here: https://bsky.app/profile/spsanderson.com

My Book: Extending Excel with Python and R here: https://packt.link/oTyZJ

You.com Referral Link: https://you.com/join/EHSLDTL6