Installation

GoWord is a single Go module. The writer, reader, template engine, merger, and math compiler all live in github.com/yunkeweb/go-word. There is no CGO, no native Word installation, and no third-party require in go.mod.

Requirements

Item	Value
Go	1.21 or later
Operating system	Any GOOS that the Go toolchain supports
Microsoft Word	Optional. Needed only to open the generated .docx
License	GNU LGPL v3

New

go get github.com/yunkeweb/go-word@v0.13.0

The command records a versioned require in your module and downloads the source into the module cache.

Upgrade

go get github.com/yunkeweb/go-word@v0.13.0

Pin a tag in CI. Proxy indexes for this module live at proxy.golang.org. Review the v0.13.0 upgrade notes, particularly keyed style.ListItem / style.Spacing literals and the HTML fidelity limits.

Import

import "github.com/yunkeweb/go-word"

Sub-packages you will see in signatures:

Package	Role
github.com/yunkeweb/go-word	Document, TemplateProcessor, AppendDocument, charts, math, streaming
github.com/yunkeweb/go-word/style	Font, paragraph, table, section, image, chart styles
github.com/yunkeweb/go-word/element	DOM nodes (Section, Table, Cell, Header, Chart)
github.com/yunkeweb/go-word/pkg/math	ParseLaTeX, WriteOMML, WriteOMath

Verify

Save as main.go and run go run .. The file install-check.docx is a valid Word 2007 package.

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"log"

	"github.com/yunkeweb/go-word"
)

func main() {
	doc := word.New()
	sec := doc.AddSection()
	sec.AddText("GoWord installation check.")
	if err := doc.Save("install-check.docx"); err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}
	fmt.Println("wrote install-check.docx")
}

Test and race detector

Normal builds and tests stay pure Go and do not require CGO:

go test ./...
go build ./...

The race detector is a separate test-time requirement. It enables CGO and needs a C compiler; it does not add a CGO dependency to applications that import GoWord. On Windows, Visual Studio provides MSVC (cl.exe) and optional LLVM/Clang, but it does not install GCC. For the most predictable Go race setup, install the MSYS2 UCRT64 MinGW-w64 GCC toolchain, add C:\msys64\ucrt64\bin to PATH, and run:

$env:CGO_ENABLED = "1"
$env:CC = "gcc"
go test -race ./... -count=1

If you only need the library, keep CGO_ENABLED=0 for regular builds and tests. GitHub Actions can run the same check on ubuntu-latest, where GCC is available by default.

Next

Quick Start walks through formulas, shapes, and two-column layout. Architecture explains how the ZIP package is assembled.