Office Toolkit

Problem

When local Office files need batch processing, opening each document, copying text, editing tables, and exporting PDFs interrupts the workflow. Office Toolkit targets an offline, file-in/file-out workflow: read PDF/DOCX/PPTX/XLSX, create DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX, convert XLSX to CSV/JSON, and export Office files to PDF on Windows via COM automation. It is not for real-time collaboration or cloud document access, making it suitable for scripts, agent workflows, and local automation.

How It Works

• Reading: PDF uses pdftotext; DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX content is extracted through zipfile and XML parsing.
• Creation: basic DOCX/XLSX files can be generated with the Python standard library; XLSX supports formulas and finance-oriented styling; PPTX creation is best handled with python-pptx.
• Conversion: XLSX to CSV/JSON runs locally; Office to PDF requires Windows COM automation from Microsoft Office or WPS Professional.
• Editing: existing XLSX files can be updated for cells, formulas, row/column insertion/deletion; existing DOCX files can have text and paragraph changes, with automatic backups.

Boundaries

• Local offline files only; no real-time collaboration or cloud document read/write.
• Office-to-PDF conversion is Windows-only, and WPS Personal may not expose COM servers.
• Scanned PDFs require OCR; stdlib creation for DOCX/XLSX focuses on plain text and values.
• Large files are limited by parsing memory; very large XLSX files should use openpyxl streaming mode.