process-conditional-sections-in-word-documents

name	Process Conditional Sections in Word Documents
description	Use this skill to handle conditional content blocks marked with {{IF_CONDITION}}...{{END_IF_CONDITION}} in Word documents. Keep or remove the entire block based on a condition, and clean up the marker text. Apply this during paragraph processing, not as a separate pass, to avoid structural issues with modified paragraphs.

Key Principles

1. Process conditionals inline: Handle {{IF_*}} and {{END_IF_*}} markers during the same pass as placeholder replacement, not in a separate preprocessing step
2. Track state across paragraphs: Use a flag to track whether you're inside a conditional block
3. Clean marker text properly: Use regex-based replacement on runs to completely remove markers, not just .replace() on paragraph text
4. Process all locations: Check paragraphs in doc.paragraphs, tables, headers, and footers

Algorithm

inside_conditional = False
condition_keep = None
paragraphs_to_delete = []

for each paragraph in all_locations (doc.paragraphs, tables, headers, footers):
    if paragraph contains {{IF_*}}:
        inside_conditional = True
        condition_name = extract_condition_name()
        condition_keep = evaluate_condition(condition_name)
        remove_marker_from_paragraph(paragraph, regex-based)
    
    elif paragraph contains {{END_IF_*}}:
        inside_conditional = False
        remove_marker_from_paragraph(paragraph, regex-based)
    
    else:
        if inside_conditional and not condition_keep:
            paragraphs_to_delete.append(paragraph)
        else:
            process_placeholder_replacements(paragraph)

delete_all_marked_paragraphs(paragraphs_to_delete)

Implementation Notes

• Extract condition name with regex: r'{{IF_(\w+)}}'
• Use paragraph._element.getparent().remove(paragraph._element) to delete paragraphs safely
• Remove markers with the same regex-based replace_placeholders_in_text() function used for other placeholders
• Collect paragraphs to delete first, then delete them after iteration (never modify a list while iterating)