Detect File Format and Check Format Compatibility

Sometimes it is necessary to determine the format of a document before opening because the file extension does not guarantee that the contents of the file are appropriate. For example, it is known that Crystal Reports often outputs documents in RTF format, but gives them the .doc extension.

Aspose.Words provides an ability to obtain information about the file type in order to avoid an exception if you are not sure what the actual content of the file is.

Detect File Format without an Exception

When you are dealing with multiple documents in various file formats, you may need to separate out those files that can be processed by Aspose.Words from those that cannot. You may also want to know why some of the documents cannot be processed.

If you attempt to load a file into a Document object and Aspose.Words cannot recognize the file format or the format is not supported, Aspose.Words will throw an exception. You can catch those exceptions and analyze them, but Aspose.Words also provides the detect_file_format method that allows us to quickly determine the file format without loading a document with possible exceptions. This method returns a FileFormatInfo object that contains the detected information about the file type.

detect_file_format only checks the file format but does not validate the file format. There is no guarantee that the file will be opened successfully, even if detect_file_format returns that it is one of the supported formats. This is because of detect_file_format method reads only partial file format data, sufficient for checking the file format, but not enough for complete validation.

Check Files Format Compatibility

We can check the format compatibility of all files in the selected folder and sort them by format into corresponding subfolders.

Since we are dealing with contents in a folder, the first thing we need to do is get a collection of all the files in this folder using the listdir method of the os module.

The following code example shows how to get a list of all the files in the folder:

When all the files are collected, the rest of the work is done by the detect_file_format method, which checks the file format.

The following code example shows how to iterate over the collected list of files, check the format of each file, and moves each file to the appropriate folder:

The files are moved into appropriate subfolders using the copyfile method of the shutil module.

The following files are used in the example above. The file name is on the left and its description is on the right:

Group of Files	Input Document	Type
Supported file formats	Test File (Doc).doc	Microsoft Word 95/6.0 or Microsoft Word 97 – 2003 document.
	Test File (`Dot`).dot	Microsoft Word 95/6.0 or Microsoft Word 97 – 2003 template.
	Test File (Docx).docx	Office Open XML WordprocessingML document without macros.
	Test File (Docm).docm	Office Open XML WordprocessingML document with macros.
	Test File (Dotx).dotx	Office Open XML WordprocessingML template.
	Test File (Dotm).dotm	Office Open XML WordprocessingML template with macros.
	Test File (XML).xml	FlatOPC OOXML Document.
	Test File (RTF).rtf	Rich Text Format document.
	Test File (WordML).xml	Microsoft Word 2003 WordprocessingML document.
	Test File (HTML).html	HTML document.
	Test File (MHTML).mhtml	MHTML (Web archive) document.
	Test File (Odt).odt	OpenDocument Text (OpenOffice Writer).
	Test File (Ott).ott	OpenDocument Document Template.
	Test File (DocPreWord60).doc	Microsoft Word 2.0 document.
Encrypted documents	Test File (Enc).doc	Encrypted Microsoft Word 95/6.0 or Microsoft Word 97 – 2003 document.
	Test File (Enc).docx	Encrypted Office Open XML WordprocessingML document.
Unsupported file formats	Test File (JPG).jpg	JPEG image file.

FAQ

Q: How can I determine a document’s format without loading it into a Document object?
A: Use FileFormatUtil.detect_file_format(file_path). The method returns a FileFormatInfo object that contains the detected format, load format, and whether the format is supported, all without opening the file.
Q: Does detect_file_format guarantee that the file can be opened successfully afterwards?
A: No. The method only reads enough bytes to identify the format; it does not perform full validation. A file may still cause an exception when loaded if it is corrupted or partially supported.
Q: Which file formats are considered supported by Aspose.Words for Python via .NET?
A: Supported formats include DOC, DOT, DOCX, DOCM, DOTX, DOTM, XML (Flat OPC), RTF, WORDML (Word 2003), HTML, MHTML, ODT, OTT, and others. See the full list of supported formats on the Supported Document Formats page.
Q: How should I handle files that detect_file_format reports as unsupported?
A: You can skip processing them, move them to a separate folder, or log a warning. Attempting to load an unsupported file with Document will raise an exception.
Q: Can detect_file_format identify encrypted documents, and do I need a license to work with them?
A: Yes, it can detect encrypted DOC/DOCX files and will mark them as encrypted in FileFormatInfo. You must provide a valid license and, if required, the password before loading the document.

Specify Load Options in Python