feat(docx-editor): edit Word documents without quietly eating what Word put in them
A .docx editor is easy to write badly: read the file into HTML, let someone
edit it, write a fresh document back, and hand them a file that lost its
headers, its page size and half its formatting without ever saying so.
Three things keep this one honest.
The reader doesn't use mammoth's HTML. mammoth's converter is deliberately
semantic, and HTML has nowhere to put a run's colour or a paragraph's line
spacing, so it drops them — and those are controls this editor puts in the
ribbon. Taking its parsed document model instead means what the ribbon offers
is what the file can actually carry. Six properties mammoth's model didn't
keep are added by build-time patches, each asserting its anchor so an upgrade
that moves the code fails the build rather than shipping a lossy reader.
The writer rebuilds the body but carries the rest of the package across:
headers, footers, footnotes, endnotes, the document's own style catalogue,
its theme and its page setup, with relationship ids and content types
re-wired. Word features the editor can't model are still lost, so they are
detected when the file opens and named in a banner before anyone edits.
Tracked changes get their own gate. mammoth renders insertions as ordinary
text and drops deletions, so saving would accept every pending revision
without Word ever asking. Such a document opens read-only until the user
says that is what they want.
Verified over 66 real documents: 65 round-trip with an identical model and a
structurally valid package, the one exception being a 7 MB WMF picture, which
no browser can display and the writer cannot emit. Also driven end to end
through a real Theseus over CDP — sidebar, ribbon, typing, save, reopen.
2026-09-20 20:46:29 +02:00
{
"id" : "docx-editor" ,
"name" : "Word editor" ,
2026-09-21 02:41:16 +02:00
"version" : "0.1.1" ,
feat(docx-editor): Save as…, PDF export, and a mark of our own
Three gaps, one theme: the editor could produce a file but not decide where
it went, what format it was in, or look like anything in the dock.
**Save as…** opens a real file dialog, and the extension typed there picks
the format. Save then writes to that file instead of dropping another copy
in Downloads every time. The renderer never names a path: the dialog returns
an opaque token, and the add-on will only write to a path a dialog actually
returned. An extension page is the least trusted thing in the add-on, and
"write these bytes anywhere" is not a capability it needs.
**PDF** goes through Chromium's own print pipeline in a hidden window — the
same engine as Ctrl+P — on the paper size read out of the document's own
sectPr. For that to match what the user was looking at, the page's
typography had to stop living in editor.css, which the export window can't
reach: it moves to lib/doc-css.js and both surfaces read the one string. The
result embeds subsetted fonts, keeps images, and turns hyperlinks into real
PDF link annotations.
**The icon** is ours. Microsoft's Word mark is a trademark and borrowing it
to look official is not something a browser that talks about sovereignty
should do. icon.svg says "text document" in its own words — a turned corner,
a heading rule, body lines, a pilcrow badge in Silent Mode green — and
`npm run icons` derives the PNGs and addon.json's copy from it, so there is
one drawing rather than several that drift.
Also: the scratch folder follows the profile rename to extensions-data/ via
the api.dataDir the host now provides, instead of creating a stale
addons-data/ beside it.
2026-09-21 03:35:55 +02:00
"description" : "Open, edit and save Word documents (.docx) in a full Theseus tab, or export them as PDF. Ribbon-style formatting, tables, lists, images and links; headers, footers, footnotes, page setup and the document's own styles are carried through a save untouched." ,
feat(docx-editor): edit Word documents without quietly eating what Word put in them
A .docx editor is easy to write badly: read the file into HTML, let someone
edit it, write a fresh document back, and hand them a file that lost its
headers, its page size and half its formatting without ever saying so.
Three things keep this one honest.
The reader doesn't use mammoth's HTML. mammoth's converter is deliberately
semantic, and HTML has nowhere to put a run's colour or a paragraph's line
spacing, so it drops them — and those are controls this editor puts in the
ribbon. Taking its parsed document model instead means what the ribbon offers
is what the file can actually carry. Six properties mammoth's model didn't
keep are added by build-time patches, each asserting its anchor so an upgrade
that moves the code fails the build rather than shipping a lossy reader.
The writer rebuilds the body but carries the rest of the package across:
headers, footers, footnotes, endnotes, the document's own style catalogue,
its theme and its page setup, with relationship ids and content types
re-wired. Word features the editor can't model are still lost, so they are
detected when the file opens and named in a banner before anyone edits.
Tracked changes get their own gate. mammoth renders insertions as ordinary
text and drops deletions, so saving would accept every pending revision
without Word ever asking. Such a document opens read-only until the user
says that is what they want.
Verified over 66 real documents: 65 round-trip with an identical model and a
structurally valid package, the one exception being a 7 MB WMF picture, which
no browser can display and the writer cannot emit. Also driven end to end
through a real Theseus over CDP — sidebar, ribbon, typing, save, reopen.
2026-09-20 20:46:29 +02:00
"author" : "Silent Mode" ,
feat(docx-editor): blue page with a pilcrow, matching pdf-editor's badge
The mark now shares pdf-editor's silhouette, corner geometry and weight, in
blue against its red, so the two editors read as a pair in the dock. It
carries a pilcrow rather than a format label: at 16px "DOC" is a smudge
while the paragraph mark is still a glyph, and it says word processor rather
than file extension.
Drawn as paths, not <text>. An icon that needs a particular font installed
to make sense is an icon that eventually renders wrong somewhere.
Still nothing of Microsoft's: their blue sheet carries a white W, and the
page-with-a-folded-corner is the universal document glyph rather than
anyone's property.
Also adds docs/DESIGN-one-extension-catalogue.md, which writes down the
larger point this kept bumping into — that bundled and community extensions
are two systems for one kind of thing, with two trust rules and two lists in
Settings, and that "ships by default" should be a line of configuration
rather than a separate distribution path. Proposed only; the awkward part is
keeping a fresh offline install usable, which the note answers by treating
the shipped copies as a pre-seeded cache that still verifies like everything
else.
2026-09-22 00:06:50 +02:00
"icon" : "data:image/svg+xml;utf8,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%20viewBox%3D%220%200%2024%2024%22%3E%3Cpath%20d%3D%22M6%202h8l6%206v12a2%202%200%200%201-2%202H6a2%202%200%200%201-2-2V4a2%202%200%200%201%202-2z%22%20fill%3D%22%232563eb%22%2F%3E%3Cpath%20d%3D%22M14%202v6h6z%22%20fill%3D%22%231e40af%22%2F%3E%3Cg%20fill%3D%22%23fff%22%3E%3Cpath%20d%3D%22M12.3%208.6a3.1%203.1%200%200%200%200%206.2z%22%2F%3E%3Crect%20x%3D%2212.05%22%20y%3D%228.6%22%20width%3D%221.7%22%20height%3D%2210.8%22%20rx%3D%22.2%22%2F%3E%3Crect%20x%3D%2214.85%22%20y%3D%228.6%22%20width%3D%221.7%22%20height%3D%2210.8%22%20rx%3D%22.2%22%2F%3E%3Crect%20x%3D%2212.05%22%20y%3D%228.6%22%20width%3D%224.5%22%20height%3D%221.7%22%20rx%3D%22.2%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fg%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E" ,
feat(docx-editor): edit Word documents without quietly eating what Word put in them
A .docx editor is easy to write badly: read the file into HTML, let someone
edit it, write a fresh document back, and hand them a file that lost its
headers, its page size and half its formatting without ever saying so.
Three things keep this one honest.
The reader doesn't use mammoth's HTML. mammoth's converter is deliberately
semantic, and HTML has nowhere to put a run's colour or a paragraph's line
spacing, so it drops them — and those are controls this editor puts in the
ribbon. Taking its parsed document model instead means what the ribbon offers
is what the file can actually carry. Six properties mammoth's model didn't
keep are added by build-time patches, each asserting its anchor so an upgrade
that moves the code fails the build rather than shipping a lossy reader.
The writer rebuilds the body but carries the rest of the package across:
headers, footers, footnotes, endnotes, the document's own style catalogue,
its theme and its page setup, with relationship ids and content types
re-wired. Word features the editor can't model are still lost, so they are
detected when the file opens and named in a banner before anyone edits.
Tracked changes get their own gate. mammoth renders insertions as ordinary
text and drops deletions, so saving would accept every pending revision
without Word ever asking. Such a document opens read-only until the user
says that is what they want.
Verified over 66 real documents: 65 round-trip with an identical model and a
structurally valid package, the one exception being a 7 MB WMF picture, which
no browser can display and the writer cannot emit. Also driven end to end
through a real Theseus over CDP — sidebar, ribbon, typing, save, reopen.
2026-09-20 20:46:29 +02:00
"main" : "index.js" ,
feat(docx-editor): Save as…, PDF export, and a mark of our own
Three gaps, one theme: the editor could produce a file but not decide where
it went, what format it was in, or look like anything in the dock.
**Save as…** opens a real file dialog, and the extension typed there picks
the format. Save then writes to that file instead of dropping another copy
in Downloads every time. The renderer never names a path: the dialog returns
an opaque token, and the add-on will only write to a path a dialog actually
returned. An extension page is the least trusted thing in the add-on, and
"write these bytes anywhere" is not a capability it needs.
**PDF** goes through Chromium's own print pipeline in a hidden window — the
same engine as Ctrl+P — on the paper size read out of the document's own
sectPr. For that to match what the user was looking at, the page's
typography had to stop living in editor.css, which the export window can't
reach: it moves to lib/doc-css.js and both surfaces read the one string. The
result embeds subsetted fonts, keeps images, and turns hyperlinks into real
PDF link annotations.
**The icon** is ours. Microsoft's Word mark is a trademark and borrowing it
to look official is not something a browser that talks about sovereignty
should do. icon.svg says "text document" in its own words — a turned corner,
a heading rule, body lines, a pilcrow badge in Silent Mode green — and
`npm run icons` derives the PNGs and addon.json's copy from it, so there is
one drawing rather than several that drift.
Also: the scratch folder follows the profile rename to extensions-data/ via
the api.dataDir the host now provides, instead of creating a stale
addons-data/ beside it.
2026-09-21 03:35:55 +02:00
"capabilities" : [
"sidebar-panel" ,
"open-tab"
] ,
2026-09-21 22:28:30 +02:00
"updateURL" : "https://navigate.st/bns/theseus.x/extensions/docx-editor/updates.json"
feat(docx-editor): edit Word documents without quietly eating what Word put in them
A .docx editor is easy to write badly: read the file into HTML, let someone
edit it, write a fresh document back, and hand them a file that lost its
headers, its page size and half its formatting without ever saying so.
Three things keep this one honest.
The reader doesn't use mammoth's HTML. mammoth's converter is deliberately
semantic, and HTML has nowhere to put a run's colour or a paragraph's line
spacing, so it drops them — and those are controls this editor puts in the
ribbon. Taking its parsed document model instead means what the ribbon offers
is what the file can actually carry. Six properties mammoth's model didn't
keep are added by build-time patches, each asserting its anchor so an upgrade
that moves the code fails the build rather than shipping a lossy reader.
The writer rebuilds the body but carries the rest of the package across:
headers, footers, footnotes, endnotes, the document's own style catalogue,
its theme and its page setup, with relationship ids and content types
re-wired. Word features the editor can't model are still lost, so they are
detected when the file opens and named in a banner before anyone edits.
Tracked changes get their own gate. mammoth renders insertions as ordinary
text and drops deletions, so saving would accept every pending revision
without Word ever asking. Such a document opens read-only until the user
says that is what they want.
Verified over 66 real documents: 65 round-trip with an identical model and a
structurally valid package, the one exception being a 7 MB WMF picture, which
no browser can display and the writer cannot emit. Also driven end to end
through a real Theseus over CDP — sidebar, ribbon, typing, save, reopen.
2026-09-20 20:46:29 +02:00
}
