Working Effectively with Office Documents in Claude Code

The modern workplace runs on office documents—Word files, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations. Yet these formats have traditionally been at odds with version control systems designed for plain text.

The Office Document Challenge

Office documents present unique challenges for version control:

• Binary formats: Traditional diff tools cannot meaningfully compare changes
• Rich formatting: Important information lives in styling, not just content
• Embedded objects: Charts, images, and other media complicate tracking

A New Approach

Claude Code and Claude Cowork's built-in skills for reading, writing, and editing office documents open new possibilities. Combined with custom skills, we can create workflows that bring version control benefits to document-heavy work.

The Workflow

1. Extract: Convert document content to version-control-friendly formats
2. Edit: Make changes using Claude's document editing capabilities
3. Track: Maintain change history using lightweight version control
4. Reconstruct: Generate polished office documents from tracked sources

This article is a placeholder. Full content coming soon.