Printing a word Document within Python

Question

I have a simple batch file here which will print a word document from the command line.

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\winword.exe" "p:\docs\daily checks.doc" /mFilePrintDefault /mFileExit

I am trying to place this into a python script, I have managed to get the document to open by using

subprocess.Popen('"C:\\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\winword.exe"' '"P:\\docs\\daily checks.doc "')

I can't seem to get the /mFilePrintDefault /mFileExit part in the command, I have tried using +'"/mFilePrintDefault /mFileExit"' plus without the +, but then the document won't open.

Can you possibly help to see how I can print this word document, or is there a better way

Thanks in advance

jcollado · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-07 09:54:11Z

9

This should work:

subprocess.Popen(["C:\\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\winword.exe", "P:\\docs\\daily checks.doc", "/mFilePrintDefault", "/mFileExit"]).communicate()

Or, altenatively,

subprocess.Popen("'C:\\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\winword.exe' 'P:\\docs\\daily checks.doc' /mFilePrintDefault /mFileExit", shell=True).communicate()

When you use shell=True the command is executed through a shell. This means that you have to pass a single string the same way as you would write the command in a shell, that is, with the quotes to prevent arguments with spaces to be splitted.

When you use shell=False (the default value), the command isn't executed through a shell. This means that you've to split the arguments yourself. The way you do this, is passing a list with all the arguments. In this case, no extra quoting is needed because the list elements already provide this information.

answered Dec 7, 2011 at 9:54

jcollado

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2 Comments

geekcomputers Over a year ago

Perfect that worked, thanks very much for the quick response and the help. Spot on!

Lewistrick Over a year ago

The /mFileExit flag doesn't work for Word 2013. I need to close the file manually before my script continues.

Serdalis · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-07 09:47:34Z

0

try using the following:

subprocess.Popen('"C:\\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\winword.exe" m"P:\\docs\\daily checks.doc" /mFilePrintDefault /mFileExit')

Popen expects a complete string or a list of args, basically type what you'd type into the shell into Popen and it will work.

the documentation on Popen states:

args should be a string, or a sequence of program arguments.

answered Dec 7, 2011 at 9:47

Serdalis

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