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Merges track changes and comments from a revision Word document into a base Word document, creating a combined output document.

Purpose

This function facilitates document collaboration by merging tracked changes and comments from a revised Word document back into the original base document. It's useful for consolidating edits from multiple reviewers, maintaining version control, or combining feedback from different sources. The function acts as a wrapper around the DocxMerger class, providing a simple interface for document merging operations.

Source Code

def merge_word_documents(base_docx, revision_docx, output_docx):
    """
    Merge track changes and comments from revision_docx into base_docx.
    
    Args:
        base_docx (str): Path to the base Word document
        revision_docx (str): Path to the revision Word document with track changes/comments
        output_docx (str): Path where the merged document will be saved
    
    Returns:
        bool: True if merge was successful, False otherwise
    """
    merger = DocxMerger(base_docx, revision_docx, output_docx)
    return merger.merge()

Parameters

Parameter Details

base_docx: String path to the original/base Word document (.docx format). This is the document that will receive the tracked changes and comments from the revision document. Must be a valid file path to an existing .docx file.

revision_docx: String path to the revision Word document (.docx format) that contains track changes and/or comments to be merged. Must be a valid file path to an existing .docx file with tracked changes or comments.

output_docx: String path where the merged output document will be saved (.docx format). Can be a new file path or an existing file (which will be overwritten). The directory must exist or be writable.

Return Value

Returns a boolean value: True if the merge operation completed successfully and the output document was created, False if the merge failed for any reason (e.g., file not found, invalid document format, merge conflicts, or DocxMerger internal errors).

Dependencies

• lxml
• zipfile
• shutil
• os
• tempfile
• re
• uuid
• logging
• datetime
• copy
• argparse
• difflib

Required Imports

from lxml import etree
import zipfile
import shutil
import os
import tempfile
import re
import difflib
import uuid
import logging
from datetime import datetime
from copy import deepcopy
import argparse

Usage Example

# Merge tracked changes from a revision document into the base document
base_document = 'original_report.docx'
revision_document = 'report_with_edits.docx'
output_document = 'merged_report.docx'

# Perform the merge
success = merge_word_documents(base_document, revision_document, output_document)

if success:
    print(f'Successfully merged documents. Output saved to {output_document}')
else:
    print('Merge failed. Check file paths and document formats.')

# Example with error handling
try:
    result = merge_word_documents(
        'path/to/base.docx',
        'path/to/revision.docx',
        'path/to/output.docx'
    )
    if not result:
        print('Merge returned False - check logs for details')
except Exception as e:
    print(f'Error during merge: {e}')

Best Practices

• Always check the return value to verify merge success before proceeding with the output document
• Ensure both input documents are valid .docx files (not .doc or other formats)
• Verify that the output path directory exists and is writable before calling the function
• Keep backups of original documents before merging, as the operation may modify document structure
• Consider implementing logging to capture detailed merge information from the DocxMerger class
• Test with sample documents first to ensure the merge behavior meets your requirements
• Be aware that complex document formatting or custom XML elements may affect merge results
• The function depends on the DocxMerger class implementation - ensure it's properly initialized and available

Tags

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