Anthropic★ 4.3

Word

Write and edit Word documents (docx) with Claude - styles, headings, tables, tracked changes included.

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A+

Safety & Trust

Delv Safety Grade: A+

Score 94/100 · assessed 2026-04-18

Maintainer95

Permissions92

Supply chain95

Transparency95

Incidents100

Official Anthropic skill for Word document manipulation, distributed through their verified skills repository. The skill provides structured OOXML editing capabilities, allowing Claude to create and modify .docx files with proper styles, headings, tables, and tracked changes. Permissions are scoped to filesystem operations for reading and writing Word documents, with no network access or shell execution. Supply chain is clean: hosted in Anthropic's official GitHub repository with standard Python packaging. Documentation is comprehensive, covering the OOXML structure and style handling. No known security incidents. The main operational consideration is that filesystem write access is required, but this is inherent to the skill's purpose and appropriately scoped to document creation rather than arbitrary file manipulation.

Green flags

Official Anthropic skill with institutional backing
Scoped to document operations, no shell or network access
Addresses real formatting problem with structured approach
Open source with clear documentation of OOXML handling
No external dependencies beyond standard Python docx libraries

Red flags

Requires filesystem write access for document generation
OOXML parsing complexity could surface edge-case vulnerabilities
No explicit sandboxing mentioned for malformed document handling

Permissions requested

Read filesWrite files

Assessed by Delv Editorial using public metadata. Grades are advisory and update as the ecosystem changes. They do not replace your own review of permissions and code before granting an agent access to sensitive systems.

The Word Skill gives Claude the ability to read, write, and edit .docx files with proper formatting intact. It understands styles (Heading 1, Body Text, custom styles), tables, cross-references, and tracked changes, so you can ask Claude to draft a contract with correct hierarchy, parse client feedback from a document with comments and revisions, or batch-edit a set of templates without losing structure. Before this Skill, Claude would treat Word files as flat text or produce documents with inline formatting that broke the moment you applied a template. Now it can generate a report with a working table of contents, read tracked changes and attribute them to the right reviewer, or update boilerplate across dozens of files while preserving numbering and styles. It's built for professionals who work in Word daily and need Claude to do more than spit out markdown.

Review

I've watched Claude fumble Word formatting for months. Ask it to generate a .docx with proper heading styles and you'd get plain text with bold markers, or a mess of inline formatting that breaks the moment you change the template. The Word Skill fixes that. It teaches Claude the structure of OOXML, how styles cascade, how to wire up a table of contents that actually updates, and how to read tracked changes without hallucinating who said what. The difference is night and day when you're drafting a contract that needs Heading 1 through Heading 3 hierarchy, or when a client sends back a proposal littered with comments and you need Claude to summarise the feedback by section. I tested it on a 40-page technical spec with tables, cross-references, and a change log. Claude parsed the tracked changes accurately, identified which reviewer made which edit, and generated a summary that matched my own read-through. Without the Skill, it would have treated the whole thing as flat text and missed half the metadata. The Skill also handles batch jobs well. I fed it a folder of contract templates and asked it to update boilerplate clauses across all of them. It preserved styles, kept numbering intact, and flagged documents where the structure didn't match the pattern. That said, it's not magic. Complex macros or embedded objects still confuse it, and if your document relies on custom XML parts or third-party plugins, you'll hit limits. It also won't fix a badly structured template, it just works with what you give it. For anyone who lives in Word and needs Claude to read, edit, or generate .docx files with real formatting, this is essential. For quick drafts where you'll reformat by hand anyway, you can skip it.

Verdict

Load this if you need Claude to handle Word documents with proper styles, tracked changes, or structured formatting. Skip it if you're just generating plain text that you'll paste into Word yourself.

Good at

Handles Word styles and hierarchy correctly, not just bold and italics
Reads tracked changes and comments with proper attribution
Generates documents with working tables of contents and cross-references
Batch-edits multiple .docx files while preserving structure
Understands OOXML well enough to avoid breaking templates

Watch out

Struggles with complex macros or embedded objects
Custom XML parts or third-party plugins can confuse it
Won't fix a badly structured template, just works with what you provide
Overkill if you're generating plain text drafts for manual formatting
No support for legacy .doc format, only .docx

Use cases

Drafting contracts or proposals in Word format
Reading tracked changes from a client doc
Generating Word reports with proper styles
Batch-editing long document sets