Update the TOC (table of content) of MS Word .docx documents with Python

Here is a snippet to update the TOC of a word 2013 .docx document which includes only one table of content (e.g. just TOC of headings, no TOC of figures etc.). If the script update_toc.py is run from the command promt (windows 10, command promt not "running as admin") using python update_toc.py the system installation of python opens the file doc_with_toc.docx in the same directory, updates the TOC (in my case the headings) and saves the changes into the same file. The document may not be opened in another instance of Word 2013 and may not be write-protected. Be aware of that this script does not the same as selecting the whole document content and pressing the F9 key.

Content of update_toc.py:

import win32com.client
import inspect, os

def update_toc(docx_file):
    word = win32com.client.DispatchEx("Word.Application")
    doc = word.Documents.Open(docx_file)
    doc.TablesOfContents(1).Update()
    doc.Close(SaveChanges=True)
    word.Quit()

def main():
    script_dir = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(inspect.getfile(inspect.currentframe())))
    file_name = 'doc_with_toc.docx'
    file_path = os.path.join(script_dir, file_name)
    update_toc(file_path)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

References:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/32992457/update-the-toc-table-of-content-of-ms-word-docx-documents-with-python