GoWord

A pure Go library for reading and writing Microsoft Word documents (.docx / Office Open XML). Inspired by PHPWord, with zero external dependencies.

Features

• Create and read .docx files
• Document properties (title, creator, subject, keywords, etc.)
• Sections with page size, orientation, margins, columns, page numbering
• Paragraphs with rich font styles (bold, italic, underline, color, size, etc.)
• Paragraph formatting (alignment, spacing, indent, borders, shading)
• Headings (Title, Heading1–9)
• Hyperlinks
• Tables with cell spanning (gridSpan, vMerge), borders, shading, nested tables
• Lists with custom numbering styles (bullets, decimal, roman, etc.)
• Images from file path or byte data (PNG, JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF)
• Headers and footers with preserve text (page numbers)
• Footnotes and endnotes
• Comments, bookmarks, table of contents
• Checkboxes, line shapes
• Watermarks (text and picture)
• Form fields (text input, dropdown, checkbox)
• Tab stops and tab characters
• Named styles (font, paragraph, table, numbering)
• TextRun for mixed-format inline content
• ExtractText for full document text extraction
• Document-level operations (Paragraphs, Tables, InsertParagraph, RemoveParagraph)
• Field code constants (PAGE, NUMPAGES, DATE, AUTHOR, etc.)
• UpdateFieldsOnOpen setting
• Unit conversion utilities (twip, cm, inch, pt, EMU, pixel)

Installation

go get github.com/VantageDataChat/GoWord

Quick Start

package main

import (
    "log"

    goword "github.com/VantageDataChat/GoWord"
    "github.com/VantageDataChat/GoWord/style"
)

func main() {
    doc := goword.New()
    doc.Properties.Title = "My Document"
    doc.Properties.Creator = "GoWord"

    sec := doc.AddSection()
    sec.AddTitle("Hello GoWord", 1)
    sec.AddText("This is a paragraph with bold text.",
        &style.FontStyle{Bold: true, Size: 12, Color: "333333"}, nil)

    if err := doc.Save("hello.docx"); err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }
}

Reading a Document

doc, err := goword.Open("existing.docx")
if err != nil {
    log.Fatal(err)
}
for _, sec := range doc.Sections {
    for _, elem := range sec.Elements {
        // Process elements...
    }
}

Examples

Tables

sec := doc.AddSection()
ts := &style.TableStyle{Width: 9000, Alignment: "center"}
ts.SetAllBorders("single", 4, "000000")
tbl := sec.AddTable(ts)
tbl.Grid = []int{3000, 3000, 3000}

row := tbl.AddRow(0, &style.RowStyle{IsHeader: true})
row.AddCell(3000, nil).AddText("Name", &style.FontStyle{Bold: true}, nil)
row.AddCell(3000, nil).AddText("Age", &style.FontStyle{Bold: true}, nil)
row.AddCell(3000, nil).AddText("City", &style.FontStyle{Bold: true}, nil)

row2 := tbl.AddRow(0, nil)
row2.AddCell(3000, nil).AddText("Alice", nil, nil)
row2.AddCell(3000, nil).AddText("30", nil, nil)
row2.AddCell(3000, nil).AddText("Beijing", nil, nil)

Images

// From file
sec.AddImage("photo.png", &style.ImageStyle{Width: 200, Height: 150})

// From bytes
sec.AddImageFromBytes(pngData, "image/png", &style.ImageStyle{Width: 100, Height: 100})

Headers, Footers & Page Numbers

header := sec.AddHeader("")
header.AddText("Company Name", &style.FontStyle{Bold: true}, nil)

footer := sec.AddFooter("")
footer.AddPreserveText("Page {PAGE} of {NUMPAGES}", nil,
    &style.ParagraphStyle{Alignment: style.AlignCenter})

Lists

doc.AddNumberingStyle("bullets", goword.NumberingStyle{
    Type: "singleLevel",
    Levels: []goword.NumberingLevel{
        {Format: "bullet", Text: "\u2022", Left: 360, Hanging: 360, Font: "Symbol"},
    },
})
sec.AddListItem("First item", 0, nil, "bullets", nil)
sec.AddListItem("Second item", 0, nil, "bullets", nil)

TextRun (Mixed Inline Content)

tr := sec.AddTextRun(nil)
tr.AddText("Normal text ", nil)
tr.AddText("bold text ", &style.FontStyle{Bold: true})
tr.AddLink("https://example.com", "a link", nil)
fn := tr.AddFootnote()
fn.AddText("Footnote content", nil)

Footnotes & Endnotes

fn := sec.AddFootnote()
fn.AddText("See reference.", nil)
fn.AddLink("https://example.com", "Source")

en := sec.AddEndnote()
en.AddText("End note text.", nil)
en.AddLink("https://example.com", "Reference")
en.AddTextBreak()
en.AddText("Second line.", nil)

Sections & Page Layout

// Landscape A4
ss := style.DefaultSectionStyle()
ss.Orientation = style.OrientLandscape
ss.PageWidth = 16838
ss.PageHeight = 11906
sec := doc.AddSectionWithStyle(ss)

// Two columns
ss2 := style.DefaultSectionStyle()
ss2.ColumnCount = 2
ss2.ColumnSpacing = 720

Named Styles

doc.AddFontStyle("emphasis", style.FontStyle{Italic: true, Color: "0000FF"})
doc.AddParagraphStyle("centered", style.ParagraphStyle{Alignment: style.AlignCenter})

sec.AddTextWithStyle("Styled text", "emphasis", "centered")

Watermarks

// Text watermark
wm := doc.AddWatermarkText("DRAFT")
wm.Font = "Arial"
wm.Color = "C0C0C0"
wm.Bold = true

// Picture watermark from bytes
wm2 := doc.AddWatermarkPictureFromBytes(pngData, "image/png")
wm2.Washout = true

Form Fields

// Text input
ff := sec.AddTextInput("username")
ff.DefaultValue = "Enter name"
ff.MaxLength = 50

// Dropdown list
dd := sec.AddDropdownList("color", []string{"Red", "Green", "Blue"})
dd.DefaultValue = "Green"

// Checkbox form field
cb := sec.AddFormField(goword.FormFieldTypeCheckBox, "agree")
cb.Value = "true"

Tab Stops

ps := &style.ParagraphStyle{
    TabStops: []style.TabStop{
        {Position: 2880, Type: "center", Leader: "dot"},
        {Position: 5760, Type: "right"},
    },
}
tr := sec.AddTextRun(ps)
tr.AddText("Left", nil)
tr.AddTab()
tr.AddText("Center", nil)
tr.AddTab()
tr.AddText("Right", nil)

Extract Text

doc, _ := goword.Open("document.docx")
text := doc.ExtractText()
fmt.Println(text)

Document-Level Operations

// Get all paragraphs/tables across sections
paragraphs := doc.Paragraphs()
tables := doc.Tables()

// Insert/remove paragraphs
newP := doc.InsertParagraphAfter(paragraphs[0])
doc.RemoveParagraph(paragraphs[1])

// Auto-update fields on open
doc.SetUpdateFieldsOnOpen(true)

Project Structure

github.com/VantageDataChat/GoWord
├── goword.go              # Top-level API: New(), Open(), type aliases
├── common/
│   ├── properties.go      # DocProperties
│   └── units.go           # Unit conversions (twip, cm, inch, pt, EMU, pixel)
├── style/
│   ├── font.go            # FontStyle
│   ├── paragraph.go       # ParagraphStyle, Border, Shading
│   ├── table.go           # TableStyle, RowStyle, CellStyle
│   ├── section.go         # SectionStyle, paper sizes
│   └── image.go           # ImageStyle
├── document/
│   ├── document.go        # Document struct, NumberingStyle
│   ├── document_api.go    # Document methods (AddSection, AddStyle, etc.)
│   ├── elements.go        # All element types (Paragraph, Table, Image, etc.)
│   ├── section.go         # Section.Add* methods
│   ├── table.go           # Table/Row/Cell methods
│   ├── textrun.go         # TextRun.Add* methods
│   ├── headerfooter.go    # Header/Footer/Footnote/Endnote methods
│   └── io.go              # Save/Open with pluggable backend
└── ooxml/
    ├── reader.go          # Read/ReadFromBytes
    ├── writer.go          # Save/WriteToBytes/WriteToWriter
    └── ...                # OOXML XML generation and parsing

Testing

go test ./... -race

374 tests, all passing with race detection. Coverage:

Package	Coverage
common	100%
style	100%
document	100%
ooxml	96.1%

License

MIT