#PowerPlatformTip 94 – ‘Extract Text from DOCX’

💡 Challenge

Extracting text from a Microsoft Word (DOCX) file using Power Automate can be challenging, especially when avoiding third-party tools.

✅ Solution

Leverage Power Automate to extract text directly from a DOCX file, understanding that it’s essentially a ZIP archive containing various XML files.

🔧 How It’s Done

Here’s how to do it:

1. Recognize that a DOCX file is a ZIP archive.
   🔸 Rename the .docx extension to .zip to inspect its structure.
   🔸 Identify the document.xml file inside the word folder.
2. Use Power Automate to extract the archive.
   🔸 Use the “Extract archive to folder” action on the DOCX file stored in OneDrive or SharePoint.
   🔸 Store the extracted files in a temporary folder.
3. Read and parse the document.xml file.
   🔸 Use “Get file content using path” to retrieve document.xml.
   🔸 Use a “Compose” or “Parse XML” action to extract the text nodes.

🎉 Result

A streamlined method to extract text from Word documents using standard Power Automate features, keeping the process simple and entirely within the platform.

🌟 Key Advantages

🔸 No need for third-party tools.
🔸 Utilizes native Power Automate actions.
🔸 Directly parses XML for accurate text extraction.

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🎥 Video Tutorial

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🛠️ FAQ

1. Do I need premium connectors to extract the DOCX archive?
No, the archive extraction actions are available with standard OneDrive or SharePoint connectors.

2. How can I automate this for multiple files?
Use an “Apply to each” loop over the list of DOCX files, then repeat the extraction steps for each file.

3. How do I strip XML tags to get only plain text?
After parsing the XML, use the “Html to text” action or string expressions in “Compose” to remove any residual markup.