python-docx-templating

name	python-docx-templating
description	A skill for replacing placeholders and handling conditional blocks in python-docx.

python-docx-templating

This skill covers how to read a Word document template, replace {{VAR}} style placeholders with actual values, and conditionally remove or keep sections of text based on {{IF_COND}}...{{END_IF_COND}} logic.

Installation

Ensure python-docx is installed:

pip install python-docx

Basic Replacement

When replacing placeholders, be mindful that python-docx splits paragraph text into multiple Run objects. For simple documents where inline formatting (bold, italic) inside the placeholder itself doesn't matter, you can replace paragraph.text directly, which will clear run-level formatting but keep paragraph-level styling. If run-level formatting is critical, use a regex or custom run-merging logic.

import docx

doc = docx.Document('template.docx')
context = {'NAME': 'John Doe', 'COMPANY': 'Acme Corp'}

for paragraph in doc.paragraphs:
    for key, value in context.items():
        placeholder = f"{{{{{key}}}}}"
        if placeholder in paragraph.text:
            paragraph.text = paragraph.text.replace(placeholder, str(value))

doc.save('output.docx')

Conditional Sections

To handle conditional blocks like {{IF_RELOCATION}} ... {{END_IF_RELOCATION}}:

import re

def process_conditionals(text, condition_true):
    if condition_true:
        # Keep content, remove tags
        text = re.sub(r'\{\{IF_RELOCATION\}\}(.*?)\{\{END_IF_RELOCATION\}\}', r'\1', text, flags=re.DOTALL)
    else:
        # Remove entire block including tags
        text = re.sub(r'\{\{IF_RELOCATION\}\}.*?\{\{END_IF_RELOCATION\}\}', '', text, flags=re.DOTALL)
    return text

This regex approach can be applied to paragraph.text to correctly render the conditional.