Superscript and subscript are formatting options that allow you to raise or lower characters in relation to the main text. Superscript is typically used for mathematical expressions, footnotes, ordinal indicators (such as "1st" or "2nd"), and chemical formulas. Subscript is commonly employed in chemical equations, mathematical notation, and certain linguistic elements. By adding superscripts and subscripts, you can enhance the readability and professionalism of your documents, especially in scientific, mathematical, and technical writing. In this article, we will demonstrate how to add superscripts and subscripts to Word documents in Python using Spire.Doc for Python.

• Add Superscript and Subscript Text to Word in Python
• Apply Superscript and Subscript Formatting to Existing Text in Word in Python

Install Spire.Doc for Python

This scenario requires Spire.Doc for Python and plum-dispatch v1.7.4. They can be easily installed in your Windows through the following pip command.

pip install Spire.Doc

If you are unsure how to install, please refer to this tutorial: How to Install Spire.Doc for Python on Windows

Add Superscript and Subscript Text to Word in Python

You can add text to a paragraph using the Paragraph.AppentText() method. After that, you can apply superscript or subscript formatting to the text through the TextRange.CharacterFormat.SubSuperScript property. The detailed steps are as follows.

• Create an object of the Document class.
• Add a section to the document using Document.AddSection() method.
• Add a paragraph to the section using Section.AddParagraph() method.
• Add normal text to the paragraph using Paragraph.AppendText() method.
• Add superscript or subscript text to the paragraph using Paragraph.AppendText() method.
• Apply superscript or subscript formatting to the superscript or subscript text using TextRange.CharacterFormat.SubSuperScript property.
• Save the resulting document using Document.SaveToFile() method.

from spire.doc import *
from spire.doc.common import *

# Create a Document instance
document = Document()
# Add a section to the document
section = document.AddSection()

# Add a paragraph to the section
paragraph = section.AddParagraph()

# Add normal text to the paragraph
paragraph.AppendText("E = mc")
# Add superscript text to the paragraph
superscript_text = paragraph.AppendText("2")
# Apply superscript formatting to the superscript text
superscript_text.CharacterFormat.SubSuperScript = SubSuperScript.SuperScript

# Start a new line
paragraph.AppendBreak(BreakType.LineBreak)

# Add normal text to the paragraph
paragraph.AppendText("H")
# Add subscript text to the paragraph
subscript_text = paragraph.AppendText("2")
# Apply subscript formatting to the subscript text
subscript_text.CharacterFormat.SubSuperScript = SubSuperScript.SubScript
# Add normal text to the paragraph
paragraph.AppendText("O")

# Set the font size for the text in the paragraph
for i in range(paragraph.Items.Count):
    item = paragraph.Items[i]
    if isinstance(item, TextRange):
        text_range = item
        text_range.CharacterFormat.FontSize = 36

# Save the resulting document
document.SaveToFile("AddSuperscriptAndSubscriptText.docx", FileFormat.Docx2013)
document.Close()

Apply Superscript and Subscript Formatting to Existing Text in Word in Python

To apply superscript or subscript formatting to a specific text, you need to search for the text using the Document.FindAllString() method, then apply superscript or subscript formatting to the instances of that text through the TextRange.CharacterFormat.SubSuperScript property. The detailed steps are as follows.

• Create an object of the Document class.
• Load a Word document using Document.LoadFromFile() method.
• Find a specific text in the document using Document.FindAllString() method. This method will return a list of TextSelection objects, each representing an instance of the text in the document.
• Get the first instance of the text as a single text range using TextSelection.GetAsOneRange() method, then apply superscript formatting to the text range by setting the TextRange.CharacterFormat.SubSuperScript property to SubSuperScript.SuperScript.
• Get the second instance of the text as a single text range using TextSelection.GetAsOneRange() method, then apply subscript formatting to the text range by setting the TextRange.CharacterFormat.SubSuperScript property to SubSuperScript.SubScript.
• Save the resulting document using Document.SaveToFile() method.

from spire.doc import *
from spire.doc.common import *

# Create a Document instance
document = Document()
# Load a Word document
document.LoadFromFile("Sample.docx")

# Find a specific number in the document
text_selections = document.FindAllString("2", False, False)

# Apply superscript formatting to the first instance of the number
superscript_text = text_selections[0].GetAsOneRange()
superscript_text.CharacterFormat.SubSuperScript = SubSuperScript.SuperScript

# Apply subscript formatting to the second instance of the number
subscript_text = text_selections[1].GetAsOneRange()
subscript_text.CharacterFormat.SubSuperScript = SubSuperScript.SubScript

# Save the resulting document
document.SaveToFile("ApplySuperscriptAndSubscriptFormatting.docx", FileFormat.Docx2013)
document.Close()

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