Using python-docx's _document method

Question

I am using python-docx and am trying to insert the a <w:bookmarkStart> tag. I do not see any immediate API method to create the tag. So I googled several references to gain access to the raw XML using the document._document_part attribute. However, when I attempt to use it, python tells me it does not exist:

>>> import docx
>>> document = docx.Document()
>>> print document._document_part
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: 'Document' object has no attribute '_document_part'

I am using python-docx 0.8.5.

Is there a method to add a <w:bookmarkStart> tag?

Answer 1

I found the solution. Here's an example:

from docx.oxml.shared import OxmlElement # Necessary Import

tags = document.element.xpath('//w:r') # Locate the right <w:r> tag

tag = tags[0] # Specify which <w:r> tag you want

child = OxmlElement('w:ARBITRARY') # Create arbitrary tag

tag.append(child) # Append in the new tag

To add an attribute:

from docx.oxml.shared import qn

child.set( qn('w:val'), 'VALUE') # Add in the value