Academic DOCX Toolkit

Problems to Solve

Academic paper formatting often faces specific issues like inconsistent styles, difficulty applying journal templates, and risks during bulk edits. For instance, tables may lack uniform styling, images can cause index drift when inserted, paragraphs may have messy formatting, and setting multi-level headings or references is cumbersome. These challenges are critical when submitting to journals or degree programs, requiring precise format control.

Core Capabilities and Workflow

As an enhancement to python-docx for academic scenarios, this skill offers the following core capabilities:

• Table Styling: Provides three academic color schemes, using python-docx Table/Cell API to set borders, margins, and three-line table styles.
• Image Management: Employs reverse insertion to prevent index drift, manipulating the XML layer (e.g., w:drawing elements) via lxml.etree for image replacement, deletion, and number reordering.
• Paragraph Operations: Supports splitting, merging paragraphs, clearing format marks, and managing heading levels, based on etree.SubElement and addnext methods.
• Document Merging: Uses an end-to-front strategy to avoid index drift, with batch submissions and two-phase replacements.
• Journal Templates: Preconfigures page parameters for GB/T, degree papers, IEEE, Elsevier, etc., applied via python-docx Section API.
• Safety Mode: Follows a backup→batch→verify→commit workflow, with rollback point management, ensuring traceable bulk edits.

The workflow typically involves:
1. User presents a formatting need (e.g., "help me check the format").
2. The skill automatically judges the scenario (journal template, image management, paragraph ops, etc.).
3. It provides corresponding python-docx code templates and strategies, using fictitious placeholders (e.g., "Lorem ipsum") in code examples.
4. For bulk edits, it first backs up the original file and prompts for user confirmation.
5. Executes safety mode, only proceeding with critical steps after human approval to ensure format accuracy and operational safety.

Boundaries and Considerations

• Academic Focus: This skill is specialized for academic paper formatting and does not replace general docx or word-docx skills. For non-academic Word operations, use other skills.
• Ethical Red Lines: Prohibited for formatting ghostwritten papers or hiding plagiarism. All operations must preserve author attribution, original information, and citation integrity.
• Operation Safety: Bulk edits require prior file backups, following guidelines in references/safety-patterns.md.
• Skill Collaboration: Collaborates with adjacent skills like academic-writing-bank (writing content) or academic-chart-gen (chart generation) via scenario routing, avoiding overlap.
• Technical Limits: Relies on python-docx's XML operations; complex cases may need deep XML adjustments. Converting to LaTeX or other formats requires external tools like pandoc.

The skill does not automatically publish or rewrite content; critical actions need human confirmation to maintain academic integrity and operational control.