DOCX

The DOCX Claude skill turns Word documents into something you can actually work with from a chat. Create them from scratch. Edit existing ones. Track changes, add comments, redline a contract, all without opening Word.

The Problem

Word documents are a special kind of pain. You either fight Word's UI, clicking through toolbars, hunting for the right style menu, watching your bullet list go feral, or you write a script to generate one and pray pandoc doesn't mangle the formatting on the way out.

You need to send a client a redlined contract. You open the existing .docx, turn on tracked changes, edit a clause, and now half your edits show up as deletions but the apostrophes have turned into question marks. You try generating a fresh doc from markdown and the tables come out borderless, the headings render as plain text, and the page is sized for A4 even though every printer in the office uses US Letter. You give up and rebuild it by hand. Forty-five minutes for a two-page memo.

Or worse... you inherit a 50-page template with broken numbering, a phantom header on page 7, and a footnote that won't die. Three hours later you're reading OOXML schema docs.

This skill solves that problem. Hand Claude the doc, or describe the one you want. You get back something Word actually opens cleanly.

What this Claude skill does

• Creates new Word documents from scratch: headings, tables, TOCs, footnotes, headers, footers, page numbers, hyperlinks, images, multi-column layouts, all in proper OOXML.
• Edits existing .docx files surgically: unpacks the underlying XML, makes the change, repacks with validation and auto-repair.
• Tracks changes the way Word expects: insertions, deletions, paragraph-mark deletions, even rejecting another author's edits, all attributed to "Claude" or any author name you specify.
• Adds threaded comments and replies with properly nested ranges and custom author attribution.
• Converts legacy .doc to .docx via LibreOffice, then edits the modern file like any other.
• Reads and extracts content through pandoc with optional tracked-change preservation, or raw XML access when you need the bytes.
• Validates every output so the file opens in Word, Google Docs, Pages, and LibreOffice without a broken-template error on the other end.

Why it's amazing!

• Stop opening Word to make ten small edits across a 30-page document.
• Generate professional contracts, memos, and reports from a single prompt.
• Redline documents with real tracked changes, not "I'll just bold the bits I changed."
• Hand off files that pass strict OOXML validation: smart quotes, clean tables, proper page sizes.

Who it's for

Anyone who works with Word documents. Lawyers redlining contracts, founders sending investor memos, consultants shipping client deliverables, ops teams maintaining policy templates, and writers who refuse to leave the terminal. Anyone who's spent more time fighting Word than writing the actual thing.

How it works

Ask Claude something like:

• "Generate a two-page services agreement with these clauses and our standard signature block."
• "Open contract.docx, change every '30 days' to '60 days' with tracked changes, and add a comment on section 4 asking the partner to confirm."
• "Make me a one-pager memo: company logo header, three sections, a table of Q4 numbers, page numbers in the footer."
• "I have a 40-page report in old .doc format. Convert it, accept all tracked changes, and give me a clean PDF."
• "Find every footnote in this brief and renumber them sequentially."
• "Build me a project status report template: TOC, executive summary, three status sections, a risks table."

You'll get back something like:

Created: services-agreement.docx (2 pages, US Letter, 1" margins)
  - 8 clauses, signature block, page numbers
  - Smart quotes throughout
  - Validated: passes strict OOXML schema

Edited: contract-redlined.docx
  - 4 tracked insertions, 4 tracked deletions ("30 days" → "60 days")
  - 1 comment added on §4 (author: Claude)
  - Original run formatting preserved (bold, font size, indentation)

Converted: report.doc to report.docx
  - Tracked changes accepted, clean output
  - PDF rendered at 150 DPI

Built: status-report-template.docx
  - TOC with 3 heading levels, dot leaders
  - 9,360 DXA content width (US Letter, 1" margins)
  - Header with company name, footer with "Page X of Y"

For documents you're about to actually send, the skill auto-repairs common XML issues like missing whitespace preservation, oversized durable IDs, and broken relationships, so the file opens cleanly when it lands.

FAQ

Does it cost anything to run?

The skill itself is free. It uses open-source tools like pandoc for reading, the docx npm package for writing, and LibreOffice for .doc conversion and PDF rendering. You install those once on your machine.

How reliable is the output?

Every generated file passes schema validation against the OOXML spec, and edits run through auto-repair for common issues. Files open cleanly in Word, Google Docs, Pages, and LibreOffice. The edge cases may need a manual pass: exotic SmartArt, embedded Excel objects, ancient legacy formatting.

Can it handle tracked changes properly?

Yes. Insertions, deletions, paragraph-mark deletions, rejections of another author's edits, restorations of deleted text, all of it follows the actual OOXML tracked-change spec, not a hack that just bolds new text. The default author is "Claude" but you can pass any name.

Does it work on PDFs or Google Docs?

No. PDFs are a different skill (use the pdf skill). Google Docs has no equivalent here. Export to .docx, edit, re-upload.

Does it work on old .doc files?

Yes, indirectly. The skill calls LibreOffice headlessly to convert .doc to .docx first, then edits the modern file. The conversion is lossless for most documents.

How big a document can it handle?

Hundreds of pages. The unpack/edit/repack pipeline works on the raw XML, so document size mostly affects how much XML Claude reads at once, not whether the operation succeeds.

Does it preserve formatting on edits?

Yes. When making tracked changes, the skill copies the original run's formatting (bold, italic, font size, color) into the new tracked-change runs. Your italics stay italic.

Can it add images?

Yes. PNG, JPG, GIF, BMP, and SVG, with proper alt text and full relationship wiring inside the docx zip.

Safe To Install

Please read before installing. Any skill you copy online is someone else's code running inside your Claude, and a lot of what's out there should give you pause. Most authors who give skills away don't give a second thought to quality or security. Most are vibe-coded slop pushed out untested, and some are the occasional bad actor hiding an exploit in plain sight. (Read about OpenClaws ClawHub security nightmare). Every skill we publish is vetted by a programmer with 20+ years of professional experience and checked line by line for anything that touches your files without reason. With Stim-Pack Studios Claude Skills, you get peace of mind knowing you're installing safe, vetted code, not a stranger's guess.

Add it to your Claude workflow

If you spend any real time on Word documents like contracts, reports, memos, and templates, this one earns its slot. It collapses the gap between "I need a document that looks like this" and "the file is on my desktop."

Get the DOCX Claude skill and ship Word documents from a chat.