Mastering Docx4j: Full Control of Word Documents in Spring Boot 3

Docx4j is an open‑source Java library designed for handling Microsoft Office Open XML formats such as .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx. The article demonstrates how to use Docx4j within a Spring Boot 3.5.0 project to perform common Word document operations.

1. Add Maven dependencies

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.docx4j</groupId>
  <artifactId>docx4j-core</artifactId>
  <version>11.5.8</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>org.glassfish.jaxb</groupId>
  <artifactId>jaxb-runtime</artifactId>
  <version>4.0.6</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>org.docx4j</groupId>
  <artifactId>docx4j-JAXB-ReferenceImpl</artifactId>
  <version>11.5.8</version>
</dependency>

2. Create a document and add styled text

WordprocessingMLPackage wordPackage = WordprocessingMLPackage.createPackage();
MainDocumentPart mainDocumentPart = wordPackage.getMainDocumentPart();
mainDocumentPart.addStyledParagraphOfText("Title", "Spring Boot3实战案例200讲");
mainDocumentPart.addParagraphOfText("《Spring Boot3实战案例200讲》涵盖从基础环境搭建到高级特性应用，如响应式编程、集群限流、自定义Starter封装等，助力开发者快速掌握Spring Boot3核心技能，提升实战能力。");
File exportFile = new File("d:/Spring Boot3实战案例200讲.docx");
wordPackage.save(exportFile);

The generated document contains a title paragraph and a body paragraph, as shown in the screenshot:

3. Control paragraph styles

To apply bold, italic, and color styling, the article creates a RPr object and attaches it to a run:

ObjectFactory factory = Context.getWmlObjectFactory();
P p = factory.createP();
R r = factory.createR();
Text t = factory.createText();
t.setValue("作者：Pack_xg");
r.getContent().add(t);
RPr rpr = factory.createRPr();
BooleanDefaultTrue b = new BooleanDefaultTrue();
rpr.setB(b);
rpr.setI(b);
Color green = factory.createColor();
green.setVal("green");
rpr.setColor(green);
r.setRPr(rpr);
p.getContent().add(r);
mainDocumentPart.getContent().add(p);
wordPackage.save(new File("d:/Spring Boot3实战案例200讲.docx"));

The styled paragraph appears as shown:

4. Insert an image

// Add image
File image = new File("d:/images/4.png");
byte[] fileContent = Files.readAllBytes(image.toPath());
BinaryPartAbstractImage imagePart = BinaryPartAbstractImage.createImagePart(wordPackage, fileContent);
Inline inline = imagePart.createImageInline("她是寂寞的美女", "美女", 1, 2, false);
P imageParagraph = addImageToParagraph(inline);
mainDocumentPart.getContent().add(imageParagraph);

private static P addImageToParagraph(Inline inline) {
    ObjectFactory factory = new ObjectFactory();
    P p = factory.createP();
    R r = factory.createR();
    p.getContent().add(r);
    Drawing drawing = factory.createDrawing();
    r.getContent().add(drawing);
    drawing.getAnchorOrInline().add(inline);
    return p;
}

The resulting document shows the inserted picture:

5. Generate a table

int writableWidthTwips = wordPackage.getDocumentModel().getSections().get(0).getPageDimensions().getWritableWidthTwips();
int columnNumber = 3;
Tbl tbl = TblFactory.createTable(3, 3, writableWidthTwips / columnNumber);
List<Object> rows = tbl.getContent();
for (int i = 0; i < rows.size(); i++) {
    Tr tr = (Tr) rows.get(i);
    List<Object> cells = tr.getContent();
    for (int j = 0; j < cells.size(); j++) {
        Tc td = (Tc) cells.get(j);
        P p = factory.createP();
        R r = factory.createR();
        Text t = factory.createText();
        t.setValue("作者：Pack_xg - %s - %s".formatted(i, j));
        r.getContent().add(t);
        p.getContent().add(r);
        td.getContent().add(p);
    }
}
mainDocumentPart.getContent().add(tbl);

The final document contains the generated table:

6. Read content from a docx file

public static void read() throws Exception {
    File doc = new File("d:/Spring Boot3实战案例200讲.docx");
    WordprocessingMLPackage wordMLPackage = WordprocessingMLPackage.load(doc);
    MainDocumentPart mainDocumentPart = wordMLPackage.getMainDocumentPart();
    String textNodesXPath = "//w:t";
    List<Object> textNodes = mainDocumentPart.getJAXBNodesViaXPath(textNodesXPath, true);
    for (Object obj : textNodes) {
        Text text = (Text) ((JAXBElement) obj).getValue();
        System.out.println(text.getValue());
    }
}

Running the method prints all text nodes, as illustrated by the console screenshot:

7. Summary

The article provides a complete, hands‑on guide for using Docx4j in a Spring Boot environment, covering dependency setup, document creation, paragraph styling, image insertion, table generation, and content extraction, with concrete code snippets and visual verification of each step.