name: docx
description: "Comprehensive document creation, editing, and analysis with support for tracked changes, comments, formatting preservation, and text extraction. When Claude needs to work with professional documents (.docx files)"
license: Proprietary. LICENSE.txt has complete terms

DOCX Creation, Editing, and Analysis

Overview

Work with .docx files (ZIP archives containing XML). Different workflows for creating, editing, and analyzing documents.

Workflow Decision Tree

Reading/Analyzing Content

• Text extraction: Use pandoc for markdown conversion
• Raw XML access: For comments, formatting, structure, media, metadata

Creating New Document

Use docx-js workflow (JavaScript/TypeScript)

Editing Existing Document

• Simple changes: Basic OOXML editing
• Professional docs: Redlining workflow (tracked changes)
• Legal/Academic/Business: Redlining workflow (required)

Reading Content

Text Extraction

# Convert to markdown with tracked changes
pandoc --track-changes=all input.docx -o output.md

Raw XML Access

# Unpack document
python ooxml/scripts/unpack.py <file.docx> <output_dir>

# Key files:
# word/document.xml - Main content
# word/comments.xml - Comments
# word/media/ - Images and media

Creating New Documents

Use docx-js library (JavaScript/TypeScript)

MANDATORY: Read docx-js.md completely before creating documents

Workflow:
1. Read docx-js.md for syntax and best practices
2. Create JS/TS file using Document, Paragraph, TextRun
3. Export with Packer.toBuffer()

Editing Existing Documents

Use Document library (Python for OOXML)

MANDATORY: Read ooxml.md completely before editing

Workflow:
1. Read ooxml.md for Document library API
2. Unpack: python ooxml/scripts/unpack.py <file> <dir>
3. Edit with Document library (Python script)
4. Pack: python ooxml/scripts/pack.py <dir> <file>

Redlining Workflow (Tracked Changes)

Use for: Professional, legal, academic, business documents

Strategy: Batch changes in groups of 3-10 for testing

Key Components

Scripts

• ooxml/scripts/unpack.py - Extract .docx to XML
• ooxml/scripts/pack.py - Create .docx from XML
• ooxml/scripts/validate.py - Validate OOXML structure
• scripts/document.py - Document library for editing
• scripts/utilities.py - Helper functions

References

• docx-js.md - Complete docx-js library guide (~500 lines)
• ooxml.md - Complete OOXML editing guide (~600 lines)
• ooxml/schemas/ - XML schemas for validation

Templates

• scripts/templates/ - XML templates for comments, extensions

Best Practices

1. Always read documentation completely before working
2. Test in batches when making multiple changes
3. Validate after modifications
4. Preserve formatting unless explicitly changing
5. Use redlining for professional documents

Dependencies

All required dependencies should be pre-installed. If missing:
- docx (JavaScript): npm install docx
- lxml (Python): pip install lxml

Note: This skill includes extensive documentation files (docx-js.md, ooxml.md) and XML schemas. For complete implementation details, refer to these bundled resources.