Format WhatsApp Conversation

Console-app to format the text backup of a WhatsApp conversation into a Word document. Pretty niche, and not the most user-friendly, but it does what I needed it to do.

How to use this app

Prerequisites: Windows and Microsoft Word, because this app uses the Word interop API.

To use this app, you will need to:

• download FormatWhatsAppConversation.exe,
• ensure that a text file _chat.txt is on your computer,
• run the program,
• input the path of the folder containing the text file when you’re prompted to.

The app will immediately start processing the text, to eventually save a formatted-chat.docx Word document in your Documents folder.

If you want run the app from source, here’s how to do that:

• clone or fork this repo,
• ensure that a text file _chat.txt is on your computer,
• build the Visual Studio solution, and
• run the program (eg by clicking “Start” in Visual Studio),
• input the path of the folder containing the text file when you’re prompted to.

Input

The messaging app WhatsApp allows you to export a conversation to a _chat.txt file. It looks like this:

[01/03/2019, 19:39:43] ‎You created group “Animals Talking”

[01/03/2019, 19:39:43] Animals Talking: ‎Messages and calls are end-to-end encrypted. No one outside of this chat, not even WhatsApp, can read or listen to them.

[01/03/2019, 19:40:10] Dog: Woof!

[01/03/2019, 14:44:50] Cat: Miaow, miaow, miaow!

[04/03/2019, 11:20:21] Rabbit: Appropriate rabbit noises

[04/03/2019, 11:33:57] Cat: Miaow miaow

In addition, the text may include references to media; see “Embedded pictures” below.

Output

Given the input above, formatted-chat.docx will look like this:

Animals Talking

You created this group at 01/03/2019, 19:39:43

Dog — 01/03/2019, 19:40:10
Woof!

Cat — 01/03/2019, 14:44:50
Miaow, miaow, miaow!

Rabbit — 04/03/2019, 11:20:21
Appropriate rabbit noises

Cat — 04/03/2019, 11:33:57
Miaow miaow

The group name “Animals Talking” is styled as a Title.

The author names and date-times are styled as Heading 2.

The other text is styled as Normal.

Embedded pictures

WhatsApp has the option to export with or without media. If the export is with media, it produces a zipped folder containing the _chat.txt file and any media. The media are represented in the text file with a tag such as <attached: 00000164-PHOTO-2020-06-09-19-59-33.jpg>. Because of this, I have made it that if the tag is found, my program will try to embed the relevant image in its place in the document.