I am trying to process a API response, which is of type binary (please see screen shot of API response about how it looks). I want to perform validation of file contents post downloading/saving it to .docx file. Can any one point me in right direction on how we can achieve the same.
Hi @ashkht !
Great question. Handling binary responses in Postman, especially for files like .docx, should be straightforward once you get the hang of it 
Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you:
- Receiving Binary Responses:
- Ensure your request headers are set up to accept binary data (e.g.,
Accept: application/octet-stream). - Send the request and wait for the response. The response will look garbled or show up as unreadable text in Postman’s response viewer because it’s a binary representation of the
.docxfile.
- Saving the Binary Response:
- Once you’ve received the binary response, click on the “Save Response” button (or right-click in the response section).
- Choose “Save to a file”.
- Save the file with a
.docxextension to your desired location.
- Validating File Contents:
- Since
.docxfiles are essentially zipped XML files, you’ll need specialized libraries or tools to read and validate their contents programmatically. - If you just want to manually verify the contents, you can open the saved
.docxfile using Microsoft Word or a similar word processing software. - For automated validations, consider using libraries like mammoth.js (for JavaScript) or python-docx (for Python) in your test scripts outside of Postman.
Unfortunately, directly validating the contents of a .docx file within Postman’s scripting environment might be a challenge due to the complex nature of Word files. Most users validate such files outside Postman in a more robust development environment tailored to their needs.
Hope that helps! Let us know if you have any other questions.