docx

1# DOCX creation, editing, and analysis
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3## Overview
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5A user may ask you to create, edit, or analyze the contents of a .docx file. A .docx file is essentially a ZIP archive containing XML files and other resources that you can read or edit. You have different tools and workflows available for different tasks.
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7## Workflow Decision Tree
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9### Reading/Analyzing Content
10Use "Text extraction" or "Raw XML access" sections below
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12### Creating New Document
13Use "Creating a new Word document" workflow
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15### Editing Existing Document
16- **Your own document + simple changes**
17  Use "Basic OOXML editing" workflow
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19- **Someone else's document**
20  Use **"Redlining workflow"** (recommended default)
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22- **Legal, academic, business, or government docs**
23  Use **"Redlining workflow"** (required)
24 
25## Reading and analyzing content
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27### Text extraction
28If you just need to read the text contents of a document, you should convert the document to markdown using pandoc. Pandoc provides excellent support for preserving document structure and can show tracked changes:
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30```bash
31# Convert document to markdown with tracked changes
32pandoc --track-changes=all path-to-file.docx -o output.md
33# Options: --track-changes=accept/reject/all
34```
35 
36### Raw XML access
37You need raw XML access for: comments, complex formatting, document structure, embedded media, and metadata. For any of these features, you'll need to unpack a document and read its raw XML contents.
38 
39#### Unpacking a file
40…