DocxportNet 1.1.4

Docxport.Net

Docxport.Net is a .NET library for walking DOCX documents and exporting them to friendly formats. Today it focuses on Markdown (rich and plain), with full handling of:

• Tracked changes (accept/reject/inline views)
• Lists with proper markers and indentation
• Tables
• Comments and threaded replies
• Headers and footers
• Images/drawings
• Bookmarks, hyperlinks, fields, and more

Why this exists

Most DOCX “save as text” pipelines lose important fidelity: strikethroughs and deletions disappear, list markers collapse to bullets or vanish (pandoc), comments/track changes are missing, images are dropped, and tools like LibreOffice/Interop require UI or platform-specific installs. Docxport.Net walks the OOXML directly, headlessly, and emits Markdown/HTML/plain text while preserving tracked changes, comments, list markers, images, headers/footers, and other semantics.

Quick start: DOCX → Markdown

Command line

# From release artifacts (self-contained binary):
./docxport my-doc.docx --format=markdown --tracked=accept

# From source:
git clone https://github.com/gaspardpetit/Docxport.Net.git
dotnet run --project DocxportNet.Cli -- my-doc.docx --format=markdown --tracked=accept

NuGet + code

Install: dotnet add package DocxportNet

using DocxportNet;
using DocxportNet.Visitors.Markdown;

string docxPath = "my-doc.docx";
var visitor = new DxpMarkdownVisitor(DxpMarkdownVisitorConfig.RICH);
string markdown = DxpExport.ExportToString(docxPath, visitor);

File.WriteAllText(Path.ChangeExtension(docxPath, ".md"), markdown);

Tracked changes

Visitors can emit different views of tracked changes:

• Accept changes (default): DxpTrackedChangeMode.AcceptChanges
• Reject changes: DxpTrackedChangeMode.RejectChanges
• Inline markup (insert/delete): DxpTrackedChangeMode.InlineChanges
• Split accept/reject panes: DxpTrackedChangeMode.SplitChanges

Pick the mode on the visitor config, e.g.:

var config = DxpMarkdownVisitorConfig.RICH with { TrackedChangeMode = DxpTrackedChangeMode.RejectChanges };
var rejectVisitor = new DxpMarkdownVisitor(config);
string rejected = DxpExport.ExportToString(docxPath, rejectVisitor);

Visitors and options

Markdown

• Presets: DxpMarkdownVisitorConfig.RICH (styled) and PLAIN (minimal).
• Options cover images, inline styling, rich tables, comments formatting, custom properties, and tracked change mode.

HTML

• Preset: DxpHtmlVisitorConfig.RICH.
• Options cover inline styles, colors/backgrounds, table borders, document colors, headers/footers, comments mode, custom properties, timeline, and tracked change mode.

Plain text

• Presets: DxpPlainTextVisitorConfig.ACCEPT and REJECT (choose tracked change handling).
• Focused on readable text output with list markers, comments, and basic structure.

DxpExport has overloads for DOCX file paths, in-memory bytes, or an already-open WordprocessingDocument, and can return a string, a byte[], write straight to a file path, or just drive a visitor that collects data.

CLI

A ready-to-use console app lives in DocxportNet.Cli (not published on NuGet). Example:

dotnet run --project DocxportNet.Cli -- my.docx --format=markdown --tracked=accept
# or, when using release artifacts:
./docxport my.docx --format=html --tracked=inline

Options: --format=markdown|html|text, --tracked=accept|reject|inline|split (text uses accept/reject), --plain (plain markdown), --output=path.

Custom visitors

You can write your own DxpIVisitor to extract specific content. Example: collect all comments.

using DocxportNet.API;
using DocxportNet.Visitors;
using DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Wordprocessing;

public sealed class CommentCollector : DxpVisitor
{
	public List<(string Author, string Text)> Comments { get; } = new();

	public override void VisitComment(Comment c, DxpIDocumentContext d)
	{
		Comments.Add((c.Author?.Value ?? "Unknown", c.InnerText));
	}
}

var collector = new CommentCollector();
DxpExport.Export("my-doc.docx", collector);
foreach (var (author, text) in collector.Comments)
	Console.WriteLine($"{author}: {text}");

It also ships a small utility that translates legacy “symbol fonts” (Symbol, Zapf Dingbats, Webdings, Wingdings) into modern Unicode.

Gaps and contributions welcome

Contributions that improve any of these areas are very welcome.

Supported symbol fonts

Symbols typically used in list markers are automatically converted to their unicode equivalent. Supported fonts include:

• Symbol
• Zapf Dingbats
• Webdings
• Wingdings
• Wingdings 2
• Wingdings 3

Symbol font to Unicode

Use DxpFontSymbols when you encounter text that was encoded with a symbol font and you want plain Unicode output.

// Convert a whole string using the font hint.
// 0x41 ('A') -> ✌, 0x42 ('B') -> 👌 in the Wingdings table.
string text = DxpFontSymbols.Substitute("Wingdings", "\u0041\u0042"); // => "✌👌"

// Convert a single character; falls back to the original if unmapped
string bullet = DxpFontSymbols.Substitute("Symbol", (char)0xB7); // → "•"

Unknown characters are returned unchanged. You can optionally supply a replacement character for non-printable glyphs:

// Replace non-printable/control entries with '?'
string safe = DxpFontSymbols.Substitute("Symbol", "\u0001\u00B7", '?'); // => "?•"

Reusing a converter

If you need to translate many strings from the same font or probe whether a font is supported, reuse a converter instance:

var converter = DxpFontSymbols.GetSymbolConverter("Webdings");
if (converter != null)
{
    string cat = converter.Substitute((char)0xF6, '?'); // 🐈
    string arrows = converter.Substitute((char)0x3C);   // ↔
}

Common mappings

• Symbol bullet: DxpFontSymbols.Substitute("Symbol", (char)0xB7) → •
• Webdings cat: DxpFontSymbols.Substitute("Webdings", (char)0xF6) → 🐈
• Wingdings peace/ok: DxpFontSymbols.Substitute("Wingdings", "\u0041\u0042") → ✌👌
• Wingdings 2 left point: DxpFontSymbols.Substitute("Wingdings 2", (char)0x42) → 👈
• Wingdings 3 arrows: DxpFontSymbols.Substitute("Wingdings 3", "\u0030\u0031") → ⭽⭤