docx

name

docx

description

Use this skill whenever the user wants to create, read, edit, or manipulate Word documents (.docx files). Triggers include: any mention of 'Word doc', 'word document', '.docx', or requests to produce professional documents with formatting like tables of contents, headings, page numbers, or letterheads. Also use when extracting or reorganizing content from .docx files, inserting or replacing images in documents, performing find-and-replace in Word files, working with tracked changes or comments, or converting content into a polished Word document. If the user asks for a 'report', 'memo', 'letter', 'template', or similar deliverable as a Word or .docx file, use this skill. Do NOT use for PDFs, spreadsheets, Google Docs, or general coding tasks unrelated to document generation.

DOCX creation, editing, and analysis

Overview

A .docx file is a ZIP archive containing XML files.

Quick Reference

Task	Approach
Read/analyze content	pandoc or unpack for raw XML
Create new document	Use docx-js - see Creating New Documents below
Edit existing document	Unpack → edit XML → repack - see Editing Existing Documents below

Converting .doc to .docx

Legacy .doc files must be converted before editing:

python scripts/office/soffice.py --headless --convert-to docx document.doc

Reading Content

# Text extraction with tracked changes
pandoc --track-changes=all document.docx -o output.md

# Raw XML access
python scripts/office/unpack.py document.docx unpacked/

Converting to Images

python scripts/office/soffice.py --headless --convert-to pdf document.docx
pdftoppm -jpeg -r 150 document.pdf page

Accepting Tracked Changes

To produce a clean document with all tracked changes accepted (requires LibreOffice):

python scripts/accept_changes.py input.docx output.docx

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Creating New Documents

For comprehensive setup, validation, page sizes, styles, tables, images, and formatting instructions when generating new .docx files, see CREATING-DOCUMENTS.md.

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Editing Existing Documents

Follow all 3 steps in order:

Step 1: Unpack

python scripts/office/unpack.py document.docx unpacked/

Step 2: Edit XML

Edit files in unpacked/word/. Use "Claude" as the author for tracked changes.

For XML schema, tracked changes patterns, comments, images, smart quote entities, and advanced patterns (tab stops, multi-column, footnotes, hyperlinks), see: references/xml-reference.md

Step 3: Pack

python scripts/office/pack.py unpacked/ output.docx --original document.docx

Common Pitfalls

• Replace entire <w:r> elements when adding tracked changes
• Preserve <w:rPr> formatting — copy original run properties
• Use smart quotes for professional typography (’ etc.)

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Dependencies

• pandoc: Text extraction
• docx: npm install -g docx (new documents)
• LibreOffice: PDF conversion
• Poppler: pdftoppm for images