docxreview

docxreview extracts comments and tracked changes from reviewed Word documents (.docx) and returns them as structured data or formatted Markdown. It is designed for workflows where documents are rendered from Quarto or R Markdown, reviewed in Microsoft Word, and feedback needs to be processed programmatically — particularly with Claude Code and btw for AI-assisted review processing.

Installation

Install the development version from GitHub:

# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("SchmidtPaul/docxreview")

Quick Start

library(docxreview)

# Get a formatted Markdown summary of all review feedback
extract_review("report_reviewed.docx")

# Save to file
extract_review("report_reviewed.docx", output = "feedback.md")

# Programmatic access as tibbles
comments <- extract_comments("report_reviewed.docx")
changes  <- extract_tracked_changes("report_reviewed.docx")

Workflow

The typical use case is a Quarto/R Markdown review cycle:

flowchart LR
    A[".qmd Source"] -->|"quarto render"| B[".docx Report"]
    B -->|"send to reviewer"| C["Reviewer edits in Word"]
    C -->|"reviewed .docx"| D["docxreview extracts feedback"]
    D -->|"structured Markdown"| E["Author revises source"]

1. Render your Quarto or R Markdown document to .docx.
2. Send the .docx to a reviewer who adds comments and tracked changes in Microsoft Word.
3. Extract the feedback with extract_review() to get a structured Markdown summary of all comments, insertions, and deletions — including paragraph context.
4. Revise your source document based on the extracted feedback.

Claude Code Integration

docxreview ships with a Claude Code skill file at inst/skills/docxreview/SKILL.md. When used together with btw as an MCP server, Claude Code can automatically extract and process review feedback from .docx files.

To make the skill available, add the installed package’s skill directory to your project’s .claude/settings.json:

{
  "permissions": {
    "allow": []
  },
  "skills": [
    "/path/to/docxreview/skills/docxreview/"
  ]
}

Or find the path programmatically:

system.file("skills", "docxreview", package = "docxreview")

Functions

Function	Returns	Description
extract_review()	Markdown (character)	Full formatted summary of all comments and tracked changes
extract_comments()	tibble	Comments with author, date, comment text, marked text, and paragraph context
extract_tracked_changes()	tibble	Insertions and deletions with author, date, changed text, and paragraph context

See vignette("docxreview") for the full workflow documentation.