---
id: antiword
version: "0.1.0"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: abandoned
---

# antiword — Spew anything out as text to stdout

License: permissive · Maintenance: abandoned · Downloads: 76.6K/mo

## What it is and what it does

Antiword is a thin Python wrapper around LibreOffice's command-line text conversion tool. It invokes `libreoffice --convert-to txt` to convert documents to plain text, capturing the output and cleaning up temporary files automatically. The package has no runtime dependencies beyond requiring LibreOffice itself to be available on the system.

The package is designed as a convenience layer for developers who need to extract text from documents programmatically. Since its single release in October 2021, it has received no updates or maintenance. It requires Python 3.9+ and is suitable only for environments where LibreOffice is already installed or can be reliably provisioned.

Use it for:

- Extract text from Word documents or other office formats in a Python script
- Batch convert document collections to plain text for text processing pipelines
- Build document indexing or search systems that need text extraction from office files

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Wraps LibreOffice's text conversion to convert documents to plain text output via a Python interface.

No. The package is abandoned with no updates since 2021-10-19, making it a maintenance liability. For active document-to-text conversion, use maintained alternatives. If you must wrap LibreOffice, consider writing a small inline helper rather than depending on unmaintained code.

## Install

pip install antiword
uv add antiword
poetry add antiword

## Installing antiword

Before you install: Low install friction with no runtime dependencies. However, the package is abandoned—last release was 2021-10-19 with no commits since. Requires Python 3.9+ and depends on LibreOffice being installed on the system.

License in practice: MIT license is permissive, allowing commercial and private use with minimal restrictions.

Quickstart:

pip install antiword

import antiword
text_output = antiword.convert(document_path)

LibreOffice must be installed and available on the system PATH for the package to function.

Verify before relying:

- Whether LibreOffice must be pre-installed or if the package handles installation
- Which document formats are supported beyond what LibreOffice can convert
- Performance characteristics and memory usage for large documents

## Package facts

- License: MIT (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: abandoned
- Downloads: 76.6K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

document to text conversion, libreoffice text extraction, convert doc to txt, document format conversion, text extraction from documents, document-conversion, abandoned

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