Claude Word skill (docx)

Ask Claude for a report, memo or letter "as a Word file" and it hands back a .docx you can open and keep editing. That job belongs to Anthropic's Word skill, ID docx, one of four pre-built document skills. This page explains what it does, how to turn it on and what to check in the result. The Claude Skills manual covers how skills work in general.

What the skill does

The skill's description names the jobs: create, read and edit Word documents and Word templates, with tables of contents, headings, page numbers and letterheads; insert or replace images; find and replace; work with tracked changes and comments. The SKILL.md picks a method by task:

• Create: Claude writes a script with the docx library to build the file.
• Edit: Claude unzips your file, changes the XML in place and zips it again, so your existing formatting stays.
• Read: Claude converts the document to text with pandoc.

For redlining, Claude marks every insertion and deletion as a tracked change under an author name, and a check reports any edit made outside a tracked change. Comments are added with a helper script and anchored to specific text. After writing a file, the skill tells Claude to render it to PDF and look at the pages before handing it over.

When to use it

• A first draft of a report, proposal or policy that colleagues will edit in Word.
• Suggested edits to a contract or draft as tracked changes, so you can accept or reject each one.
• Filling a company template while keeping its styles.

For a file nobody will edit, the PDF skill may suit better. For a weekly update or newsletter, the internal-comms skill sets the format, and our writing prompts help with the draft itself.

How to install it

Claude.ai: built in. Turn on "Code execution and file creation" under Settings > Capabilities, and Claude uses the skill when you ask for a Word document.

Claude API: pass docx as a skill in the container parameter with the code execution tool.

Claude Code: the pre-built document skills do not ship with it. Install Anthropic's published copies:

/plugin marketplace add anthropics/skills
/plugin install document-skills@anthropic-agent-skills

Example request

Review the attached [contract or draft].docx from the side of [your company]. Suggest edits as tracked changes under the author name "[your name]", and add a comment on each change explaining why. Do not change anything else.

Limits

• Old .doc files must be converted to .docx first.
• The library defaults to A4 pages. If you need US Letter, say so in your request.
• The SKILL.md warns that some tools used to accept tracked changes can leave an empty bullet behind when a whole paragraph is deleted. Check deletions in Word itself.
• The repository copy is source-available, not open source, and Anthropic says Claude's own behavior may differ from it.
• It produces Word files only. It does not edit Google Docs.

FAQ

Can Claude edit my existing Word document?

Yes. It edits the file's XML directly, which keeps your styles and layout, and it can mark its edits as tracked changes.

Where is the Word skill in Claude Code?

It is not bundled. Install the document-skills plugin from Anthropic's skills repository.