Unknown table format '{string}'. Supported formats are: {lis

Error message

Unknown table format '{string}'. Supported formats are: {list(enum_map.keys())}

What it means

DOCXTableFormat.from_str converts a user string into the DOCXTableFormat enum by exact (case-insensitive) value match. If the string is not one of the enum's values, it raises ValueError listing the valid options.

Source

Thrown at haystack/components/converters/docx.py:90

    Supported formats for storing DOCX tabular data in a Document.
    """

    MARKDOWN = "markdown"
    CSV = "csv"

    def __str__(self) -> str:
        return self.value

    @staticmethod
    def from_str(string: str) -> "DOCXTableFormat":
        """
        Convert a string to a DOCXTableFormat enum.
        """
        enum_map = {e.value: e for e in DOCXTableFormat}
        table_format = enum_map.get(string.lower())
        if table_format is None:
            msg = f"Unknown table format '{string}'. Supported formats are: {list(enum_map.keys())}"
            raise ValueError(msg)
        return table_format


DOCXLinkFormat = LinkFormat


@component
class DOCXToDocument:
    """
    Converts DOCX files to Documents.

    Uses `python-docx` library to convert the DOCX file to a document.
    This component does not preserve page breaks in the original document.

    Usage example:

    ```python
    from haystack.components.converters.docx import DOCXToDocument, DOCXTableFormat, DOCXLinkFormat

View on GitHub (pinned to e318778c9b)

Solutions

Use one of the listed supported values from the error message, e.g. from_str('csv').
Trim whitespace and lowercase the string before calling (from_str lowercases already, but strip spaces).
Update the config key to a valid enum value.
Check the enum definition in haystack/components/converters/docx.py for exact accepted values.

Example fix

// before
fmt = DOCXTableFormat.from_str("markdown-table")
// after
fmt = DOCXTableFormat.from_str("markdown")

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

VALID = {e.value for e in DOCXTableFormat}
fmt_input = fmt_input.strip().lower()
if fmt_input not in VALID:
    raise ValueError(f"{fmt_input!r} not in {sorted(VALID)}")

Type guard

def is_valid_table_format(s: str) -> bool:
    return s.strip().lower() in {e.value for e in DOCXTableFormat}

Try / catch

try:
    fmt = DOCXTableFormat.from_str(user_input)
except ValueError as e:
    logger.warning("%s; defaulting to %s", e, DOCXTableFormat.CSV)
    fmt = DOCXTableFormat.CSV

Prevention

Copy accepted values from the enum definition, not from other libraries' docs.
Strip and lowercase user/config input before from_str().
Expose the valid options in your app's config UI or schema.
Add a test asserting every configured format parses.

When it happens

Trigger: Calling DOCXTableFormat.from_str('markdown-table') or passing table_format='csv ' with whitespace, or a synonym like 'grid' that is not an enum value, to a DOCX converter.

Common situations: Typo in pipeline YAML; using format names from another library (e.g. pandas to_markdown variants); copy-pasting with trailing spaces or quotes.

Understand the failure class

Background: Invalid enum value errors: "Unknown type", "Invalid scope", "must be one of" — when a string is not on the library's allowed list — this error's family across 23 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of deepset-ai/haystack@e318778c9b (2026-08-30). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ec11aefafcc8f7ec. Report an issue: GitHub.