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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) for: (1) Creating new documents, (2) Modifying or editing content, (3) Working with tracked changes, (4) Adding comments, or any other document tasks"

DOCX Creation, Editing, and Analysis

Overview

Work with .docx files which are ZIP archives containing XML files. Different tools and workflows available for different tasks.

Workflow Decision Tree

Reading/Analyzing Content

Use text extraction or raw XML access

Creating New Document

Use docx-js workflow

Editing Existing Document

• Your own document + simple changes: Basic OOXML editing
• Someone else's document: Redlining workflow (recommended)
• Legal, academic, business docs: Redlining workflow (required)

Reading and Analyzing Content

Text Extraction

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

Raw XML Access

For comments, complex formatting, document structure, embedded media, and metadata:

Copy# Unpack document
python ooxml/scripts/unpack.py <office_file> <output_directory>

Key file structures:

• word/document.xml - Main document contents
• word/comments.xml - Comments
• word/media/ - Embedded images and media

Creating New Documents

Use docx-js (JavaScript/TypeScript):

Copyimport { Document, Paragraph, TextRun, Packer } from 'docx';

const doc = new Document({
  sections: [{
    properties: {},
    children: [
      new Paragraph({
        children: [new TextRun("Hello World!")],
      }),
    ],
  }],
});

// Export
const buffer = await Packer.toBuffer(doc);

Editing Existing Documents

Use the Document library (Python) for OOXML manipulation:

1. Unpack: python ooxml/scripts/unpack.py <file.docx> <dir>
2. Create Python script using Document library
3. Pack: python ooxml/scripts/pack.py <dir> <file.docx>

Redlining Workflow

For tracked changes:

1. Convert to markdown: pandoc --track-changes=all file.docx -o current.md
2. Identify and group changes
3. Unpack document
4. Implement changes in batches using Document library
5. Pack the document
6. Verify all changes applied correctly

Dependencies

• pandoc: For text extraction
• docx: npm install -g docx for creating new documents
• LibreOffice: For PDF conversion
• defusedxml: For secure XML parsing