Is there a Python module for converting RTF to plain text?

python text rtf
Tony picture Tony · Aug 26, 2009 · Viewed 51.1k times · Source

Ideally, I'd like a module or library that doesn't require superuser access to install; I have limited privileges in my working environment.

Answer

Brendon picture Brendon · Nov 30, 2009

I've been working on a library called Pyth, which can do this:

http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pyth/

Converting an RTF file to plaintext looks something like this:

from pyth.plugins.rtf15.reader import Rtf15Reader
from pyth.plugins.plaintext.writer import PlaintextWriter

doc = Rtf15Reader.read(open('sample.rtf'))

print PlaintextWriter.write(doc).getvalue()

Pyth can also generate RTF files, read and write XHTML, generate documents from Python markup a la Nevow's stan, and has limited experimental support for latex and pdf output. Its RTF support is pretty robust -- we use it in production to read RTF files generated by various versions of Word, OpenOffice, Mac TextEdit, EIOffice, and others.

Related questions

Print string to text file

I'm using Python to open a text document: text_file = open("Output.txt", "w") text_file.write("Purchase Amount: " 'TotalAmount') text_file.close() I want to substitute the value of a string variable TotalAmount into the text document. Can someone …

Read More
How to read a text file into a list or an array with Python

I am trying to read the lines of a text file into a list or array in python. I just need to be able to individually access any item in the list or array after it is created. The text …

Read More
How to replace multiple substrings of a string?

I would like to use the .replace function to replace multiple strings. I currently have string.replace("condition1", "") but would like to have something like string.replace("condition1", "").replace("condition2", "text") although that does not feel like good syntax what …

Read More