Word DOCX Formatting Repair Helper
Purpose
Use this skill when a DOCX or Word-like document has inconsistent styles, broken numbering, unreliable find-and-replace, conversion issues, table problems, or repeated formatting cleanup.
Audience: office workers, legal teams, students, documentation maintainers, and operations teams cleaning up structured Word documents.
Read references/requirement-plan.md when demand evidence, source links, scoring rationale, or review criteria are needed.
Workflow
- Clarify the target format, document count, style guide, required sections, protected content, tracked changes needs, and acceptable tooling.
- Inspect headings, styles, numbering definitions, tables, fields, hyperlinks, images, footnotes, and section breaks before editing.
- Choose the safest repair path: Word UI steps, python-docx, Pandoc, LibreOffice conversion, XML-level inspection, or manual style normalization.
- Plan find-and-replace rules with examples, exclusions, backup strategy, and a dry-run report when batch changes are involved.
- Apply or describe repairs in small reversible stages, preserving semantic styles instead of hard-coding visual formatting.
- Render or otherwise verify page flow, headings, numbering, tables, links, and conversion fidelity.
Expected Outputs
- A repair plan for DOCX formatting, styles, numbering, or conversion issues.
- Safe find-and-replace rules with exclusions and test cases.
- Script snippets or command steps for local document cleanup.
- A visual or structural verification checklist.
Validation
- Backups or dry-run reports exist before destructive batch edits.
- Styles and numbering are normalized semantically, not only by visual overrides.
- Document rendering is checked after repair when layout matters.
- Protected content, fields, links, and tracked-change needs are handled explicitly.
Triggers
Keywords: DOCX, Microsoft Word, formatting, styles, find replace, numbering, tables, Pandoc
Example trigger sentences:
Use $word-docx-formatting-repair-helper to fix broken numbering in this DOCX.Design a safe batch find-and-replace workflow for Word documents.Repair styles before converting this Word file to Markdown.