Working With Your Own Word Documents
Have an agent redline your Word documents with real tracked changes, comment on them, fill your templates and build structured documents.
Overview
Contracts, policies, board papers, letters on your letterhead: much of an executive's work lives in Word documents. The Word Documents skill lets an agent work on those files properly. Ask what a document says, have a clause changed as a real tracked change you can accept or reject in Word, add or answer comments, fill in your template, or build a new document that needs real Word structure such as headers, page numbers and a table of contents.
Three promises sit underneath everything it does:
- Your original is never overwritten. Every change comes back as a new file in your Files, attached to the conversation.
- Your document keeps its formatting. Styles, numbering and layout stay as they were, and only what you asked for changes.
- A redline is a real redline. Tracked changes are genuine Word revisions with an author name and date, not coloured or struck-through text, so they show up in Word's Review tools and you can accept or reject each one.
What You Can Ask For
You want to… | Example | What you get |
Know what a document says | "What's the notice period in the services agreement?" | An answer in the chat, straight away |
Redline it | "In clause 4, change 'thirty days' to 'sixty days' as a tracked change." | A new copy with a real tracked change |
Comment on it | "Add a comment on clause 4 saying we need legal to confirm this." | A new copy with the comment attached to that clause |
Answer comments | "Reply to the reviewer's comment on clause 7 agreeing to the change." | A new copy with your reply in the comment thread |
Accept or reject changes | "Accept all the tracked changes from the last review." | A new, clean copy |
Edit it cleanly | "Update the date and the party names throughout." | A new copy with the edits, formatting unchanged |
Fill a template | "Fill our letterhead template with this letter to the board." | A new document on your template |
Build a structured document | "Write a board paper with a cover page, page numbers and a table of contents." | A new .docx with real Word structure |
It works with .docx documents and .dotx templates.
Getting Started
- Give the agent the document. Attach it to your message, or name it ("the services agreement", "our letterhead template") and the agent will find it in your Files.
- Be specific about the change. Say which clause or page, the exact new wording, whether you want it tracked or clean, and whose name the tracked changes should run under. Your exact words are copied, never "improved".
- Switch the skill on, or let the agent do it. You can pick Word Documents from the skill picker in the chat (it sits under Writing & Communication), or name it in your message. Agents also pick it up on their own when you hand them a Word file to change.
Here's the services agreement. As a tracked change under my name, change
"thirty days" to "sixty days" in clause 4, and add a comment on that change:
"Agreed with the supplier on the call today."What Happens Behind the Scenes
- Questions about what a document says are answered from its text. When you upload a document, Sapience already reads its words, so "what does clause 4 say?" is answered straight from that and nothing about your file changes.
- Changes to the file happen in a private workspace. When you ask for the document itself to change, the agent opens a secure cloud workspace for your conversation, puts a copy of your file in it, and works on that copy using a specialist Word skill that is updated to its latest version every night.
- The agent writes a complete brief. It passes on the exact wording, which clauses change, tracked or clean, the redline author, each comment and the words it attaches to, and which parts of the document must not move.
- The new document is checked before you see it. It is checked for errors, every tracked change is confirmed to be a real tracked change, the changed pages are looked at as they would print, and the rest of the document is confirmed to read exactly as before.
- You get a new file. The finished document is saved to your Files with a new name and attached to the conversation. The agent tells you what changed and where, whose name the tracked changes run under, what each comment says, what was checked, and anything it could not check.
Ask for another change and the agent keeps working in the same workspace, and each revision comes back as a new file (for example services-agreement-v2.docx, then -v3).
Good to Know
- Accepting the changes. Open the new file in Word and use Review ▸ Accept or Reject on each change, just as you would with a colleague's redline. Or ask the agent to accept them for you.
- Only what you asked. A redline touches only the clauses you named. If anything else was reworded, the agent sends it back before you see it.
- Simple questions don't need the workspace. If the agent you're talking to can't use the workspace, it can still answer questions about what a document says and write simple new documents.
- Big jobs come in stages. Each pass in the workspace runs for up to about 20 minutes. For a long document, the agent splits the work: structure first, then edits, then comments.
- Not for every format. PDFs, spreadsheets and Google Docs aren't edited by this skill; the agent will suggest the closest option (spreadsheets go to the Excel & Spreadsheets skill).
- Honest about problems. If a redline couldn't be made fully tracked, or a check couldn't run, the agent says so plainly rather than handing it over as finished.
Quick Reference
Skill name | Word Documents |
Where to find it | The skill picker in the chat, under Writing & Communication, and the AI Catalogue |
Files it works with | .docx documents and .dotx templates |
Questions about a document | Answered from the document's text, straight away |
Tracked changes | Real Word revisions with an author and date, ready to accept or reject |
Comments | Attached to the exact words they discuss |
Your original | Never overwritten; every revision is a new file |
A simple new memo or letter | Saved directly, without the workspace |
Related | Working With Your Own PowerPoint Files — the same approach for decks |
Summary
Word Documents lets an agent handle your real Word files the way a careful colleague would: redline with genuine tracked changes, comment on the right words, fill your templates and build properly structured documents, always returning a new, checked file and leaving your original untouched. Hand over the document, say exactly what should change, and you get a redline you can review in Word.