Agent skill

editing-word-documents

Reads, creates, edits, and formats Word documents (.docx files), including tracked changes, comments, and template-based generation. Activates when the user works with .docx files or requests document authoring, redlining, or text extraction from Word documents.

View SKILL.md on GitHub Repository
Stars 5
Forks 0

Install this agent skill to your Project

npx add-skill https://github.com/jawhnycooke/claude-plugins/tree/main/plugins/ms-office-suite/skills/docx

SKILL.md

Word Document (.docx) Guide

This guide covers creating, editing, and analyzing Word documents. For JavaScript-based creation, see docx-js.md. For OOXML technical details and tracked changes, see ooxml.md.

Workflows Overview

Task Approach Reference
Read/analyze document pandoc or raw XML This file
Create new document docx-js (JavaScript) docx-js.md
Edit existing document Python Document library ooxml.md
Add tracked changes Python Document library ooxml.md

Reading & Analysis

Convert to Markdown (Quick Read)

bash
pandoc document.docx -o output.md

Extract Text with Python

python
from docx import Document

doc = Document("document.docx")
for para in doc.paragraphs:
    print(para.text)

Access Raw XML (Detailed Analysis)

bash
# Unpack the .docx file
unzip document.docx -d unpacked/

# Main document content
cat unpacked/word/document.xml

# Styles
cat unpacked/word/styles.xml

# Comments
cat unpacked/word/comments.xml

Visual Analysis

Convert to PDF then to images for visual inspection:

bash
# Using LibreOffice
libreoffice --headless --convert-to pdf document.docx

# Convert PDF to images
pdftoppm -png -r 200 document.pdf page

Creating Documents (docx-js)

For new documents, use the docx-js library. Read docx-js.md fully before starting.

Basic Example

javascript
const { Document, Packer, Paragraph, TextRun, HeadingLevel } = require("docx");
const fs = require("fs");

const doc = new Document({
    sections: [{
        properties: {},
        children: [
            new Paragraph({
                text: "Document Title",
                heading: HeadingLevel.HEADING_1
            }),
            new Paragraph({
                children: [
                    new TextRun("Normal text with "),
                    new TextRun({ text: "bold", bold: true }),
                    new TextRun(" formatting.")
                ]
            })
        ]
    }]
});

Packer.toBuffer(doc).then(buffer => {
    fs.writeFileSync("output.docx", buffer);
});

Editing Documents

For editing existing documents, use the Python approach with direct XML manipulation.

Simple Text Replacement

python
from docx import Document

doc = Document("template.docx")

for para in doc.paragraphs:
    if "{{NAME}}" in para.text:
        para.text = para.text.replace("{{NAME}}", "John Doe")

doc.save("filled.docx")

Advanced Editing (Preserve Formatting)

For edits that preserve formatting, work with XML directly:

python
# Unpack, modify XML, repack
import zipfile
import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

# Extract
with zipfile.ZipFile("document.docx", "r") as zip_ref:
    zip_ref.extractall("unpacked")

# Parse and modify
tree = ET.parse("unpacked/word/document.xml")
root = tree.getroot()
# ... make changes ...
tree.write("unpacked/word/document.xml", xml_declaration=True)

# Repack
with zipfile.ZipFile("modified.docx", "w") as zipf:
    for root, dirs, files in os.walk("unpacked"):
        for file in files:
            file_path = os.path.join(root, file)
            arcname = os.path.relpath(file_path, "unpacked")
            zipf.write(file_path, arcname)

Tracked Changes (Redlining)

For professional document editing with tracked changes:

  1. Convert to markdown to understand content
  2. Identify changes in batches of 3-10 edits
  3. Apply to XML preserving original run attributes

Critical guideline: Only mark text that actually changes. Repeating unchanged text makes edits harder to review.

See ooxml.md for detailed tracked changes implementation.

Tracked Change Example

xml
<!-- Original: "The quick brown fox" -->
<!-- After deletion of "quick ": -->
<w:p>
  <w:r>
    <w:t>The </w:t>
  </w:r>
  <w:del w:author="Editor" w:date="2024-01-15T10:30:00Z">
    <w:r>
      <w:delText>quick </w:delText>
    </w:r>
  </w:del>
  <w:r>
    <w:t>brown fox</w:t>
  </w:r>
</w:p>

Adding Comments

python
from docx import Document
from docx.oxml.ns import qn
from docx.oxml import OxmlElement

doc = Document("document.docx")

# Add comment to first paragraph
para = doc.paragraphs[0]
comment = OxmlElement("w:commentReference")
comment.set(qn("w:id"), "1")
para._p.append(comment)

# Add comment content to comments.xml
# (requires direct XML manipulation)

doc.save("commented.docx")

Document Properties

python
from docx import Document

doc = Document("document.docx")

# Read properties
core_props = doc.core_properties
print(f"Title: {core_props.title}")
print(f"Author: {core_props.author}")
print(f"Created: {core_props.created}")

# Set properties
core_props.title = "New Title"
core_props.author = "New Author"

doc.save("updated.docx")

Dependencies

bash
# Python
pip install python-docx lxml

# JavaScript
npm install docx

# CLI tools
brew install pandoc libreoffice  # macOS
apt-get install pandoc libreoffice  # Ubuntu

Best Practices

  1. Always read reference files (docx-js.md and ooxml.md) before complex operations
  2. Batch edits logically - group related changes together
  3. Preserve formatting - work at the run level, not paragraph level
  4. Validate output - open in Word to verify no corruption
  5. Keep backups - OOXML manipulation can corrupt files if done incorrectly

Recommended Agent Skills

Expand your agent's capabilities with these related and highly-rated skills.

jawhnycooke/claude-plugins

demonstrating-skill-format

Provides a reference template and structural guide for creating Claude Code plugin skills. Activates when the user asks about skill development patterns, requests a skill template, or wants to understand the SKILL.md format and frontmatter options.

5 0
Explore
jawhnycooke/claude-plugins

coauthoring-documents

Guides collaborative creation of structured documents through a three-stage workflow of context gathering, iterative refinement, and reader testing. Activates when the user drafts documentation, proposals, technical specs, or decision documents that benefit from structured co-authoring.

5 0
Explore
jawhnycooke/claude-plugins

processing-pdfs

Reads, creates, merges, splits, and edits PDF files, including text and table extraction, form filling, OCR on scanned documents, and watermarking. Activates when the user works with .pdf files or requests any PDF manipulation task.

5 0
Explore
jawhnycooke/claude-plugins

analyzing-spreadsheets

Creates, edits, and analyzes Excel spreadsheets (.xlsx, .xlsm, .csv), including formula-based calculations, cell formatting, financial modeling, and data analysis with pandas and openpyxl. Activates when the user works with spreadsheet files or requests Excel-related tasks.

5 0
Explore
jawhnycooke/claude-plugins

creating-presentations

Creates, edits, and analyzes PowerPoint presentations (.pptx files), including slide design, chart and table insertion, HTML-to-PPTX conversion, and template-based generation. Activates when the user works with .pptx files or requests presentation authoring.

5 0
Explore
jawhnycooke/claude-plugins

creating-sdk-apps

This skill should be used when the user asks to "create an agent SDK app", "build a Claude Agent SDK project", "set up a new SDK application", "scaffold an agent app", "create a new agent", or needs guidance on initializing, configuring, and building applications with the Claude Agent SDK in TypeScript or Python.

5 0
Explore

Didn't find tool you were looking for?

Be as detailed as possible for better results