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fix: handle external image references in docx files#3148

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joaquinhuigomez wants to merge 2 commits intodocling-project:mainfrom
joaquinhuigomez:fix/docx-external-image-crash
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fix: handle external image references in docx files#3148
joaquinhuigomez wants to merge 2 commits intodocling-project:mainfrom
joaquinhuigomez:fix/docx-external-image-crash

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@joaquinhuigomez joaquinhuigomez commented Mar 17, 2026 •
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github-actions bot commented Mar 17, 2026 •
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✅ DCO Check Passed

Thanks @joaquinhuigomez, all your commits are properly signed off. 🎉

@joaquinhuigomez joaquinhuigomez changed the title fix: handle PermissionError for directory input on Windows CLI fix: handle external image references in docx files Mar 17, 2026
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joaquinhui and others added 2 commits March 18, 2026 11:29
@joaquinhui @claude
fix: handle external image references in docx files
2b18a88 
When a .docx file contains image relationships with TargetMode="External"
(e.g. URLs pointing to external images), accessing rel.target_part raises
an error because external relationships don't have a target_part. This
adds a guard to check rel.is_external before accessing target_part,
returning None so the image is gracefully skipped.

Fixes docling-project#3113

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Signed-off-by: Joaquin Hui Gomez <joaquinhui1995@gmail.com>
@joaquinhui
chore: add DCO sign-off
aa2ca5a 
Signed-off-by: Joaquin Hui Gomez <joaquinhui1995@gmail.com>
@joaquinhuigomez joaquinhuigomez force-pushed the fix/docx-external-image-crash branch from 657cfa0 to aa2ca5a Compare March 18, 2026 11:29
@PeterStaar-IBM PeterStaar-IBM requested review from PeterStaar-IBM, ceberam and dolfim-ibm and removed request for ceberam and dolfim-ibm March 18, 2026 15:43
PeterStaar-IBM
PeterStaar-IBM reviewed Mar 18, 2026
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docling/backend/msword_backend.py
)
if rId in self.docx_obj.part.rels:
rel = self.docx_obj.part.rels[rId]
# External relationships (e.g. URLs) don't have a
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I think we support URI in the image part, maybe we should propagate that?

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codecov bot commented Mar 18, 2026

Codecov Report

❌ Patch coverage is 75.00000% with 1 line in your changes missing coverage. Please review.

Files with missing lines Patch % Lines
docling/backend/msword_backend.py 75.00% 1 Missing ⚠️

📢 Thoughts on this report? Let us know!

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joaquinhuigomez commented Mar 18, 2026

Good point — I'll look into propagating the URI through to the image part instead of just downloading and embedding it. Let me update the PR.

@ceberam ceberam mentioned this pull request Mar 18, 2026
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ceberam commented Mar 18, 2026

Thanks @joaquinhuigomez for your interest in Docling and your contributions!
The issue #3113 was already being addressed through PR #3114 and it will be merged as soon as the change requests from the reviews are completed.

However, as @PeterStaar-IBM pointed out, we could (optionally) fetch external images like we do in the HTMLDocumentBackend, instead of ignoring them. If you would be interested to contribute on this, I would suggest that you:

  • Close this PR.
  • Open a new issue of type Feature request and fill up the form, describing the feature.
  • Add a comment on the new issue expressing the willingness to implement the feature. We will add you as assignee.
  • Once you have the implementation ready, open a PR and link it to the issue, making sure it passes all the style checks.

Thanks again for your contributions!

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joaquinhuigomez commented Mar 19, 2026

Closing this per maintainer guidance. The requested next step is to open a feature request for optionally fetching external images in DOCX (similar to HTMLDocumentBackend), then link a future implementation PR to that issue. I’ll follow that route instead of keeping this PR open.

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