Exception handling should provide meaningful feedback and use appropriate exception types rather than failing silently or relying on fragile string-based checks. Avoid catching exceptions without proper logging, user feedback, or recovery mechanisms. Use built-in Python exceptions when available instead of creating custom ones unnecessarily.

Key practices:

Example of problematic silent handling:

try:
    result = subprocess.run(libreoffice_command, capture_output=True, text=True)
    # ... process result
except Exception as _:
    # Silent failure - no logging or user feedback
    pass

Better approach with meaningful handling:

try:
    result = subprocess.run(libreoffice_command, capture_output=True, text=True)
    # ... process result  
except subprocess.SubprocessError as e:
    logger.warning(f"LibreOffice conversion failed: {e}")
    return None
except FileNotFoundError:  # Use built-in exception
    raise FileNotFoundError(f"File {path} does not exist")