Insert image encoded in base 64 in a word document with python-docx? - postgresql

Question

I use python-docx to generate word document. the user want that he create a template(in a field description) and when he write for example %(company_logo)s in the template, I replace this expression by the picture of the company that I recupered from the database.
as a first issue, I recupered the logo of a company from the database(Postgresql) and I use this code to replace this expression:
cr.execute("select name, logo_web from res_company where id=%s",[soc_id])
r=cr.fetchone()
if r :
company_name=r[0]
logo_company = r[1]
output = cStringIO.StringIO()
doc = docx.Document()
contenu=contenu % {'company_logo': logo_company, 'company_name': company_name,}
doc.add_paragraph(contenu)
The output was a document word that contains the base 64 code of the image as a string. I decoded this code and I tried to add it as a picture with the following code:
logo_company = base64.b64decode(r[1])
doc.add_picture(logo_company)
But I have this error that tells to me that argument must be the path to the picture.
TypeError: file() argument 1 must be encoded string without NULL bytes, not str

Answer 1

The documentation here explains that the add_picture() method takes a file as an argument. The file can be in the form of a path, or it can be a file-like object, such as an open file or a StringIO object. It cannot accept a bytestring containing the bytes of the image, which is what you've tried to do.
So you'll need to convert the image bytes into a file-like object, perhaps using StringIO(), and hand the resulting file-like object to add_picture(). That will get it working for you. Something like:
logo_file = StringIO(base64.b64decode(r[1]))
doc.add_picture(logo_file)