Show HN: JavaScript-first, open-source WYSIWYG DOCX editor (github.com)
We needed a JS-first WYSIWYG DOCX editor and couldn't find a solid OSS option, most were either commercial or abandoned.
As an experiment, we gave Claude Code the OOXML spec, a concrete editor architecture, and a Playwright-based test suite. The agent iterated in a (Ralph) loop over a few nights and produced a working editor from scratch.
Core text editing works today. Tables and images are functional but still incomplete. MIT licensed.
16 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 38.3 ms ] threadThe spec is over 5000 pages long - no way in hell a human could parse this in a reasonable timeframe and no agent today has nearly the necessary context.
EDIT: also, like you said: the spec is secondary to the implementation and was only published (and not even in complete form originally!) because Microsoft was asked by the EU to do that.
Somehow this reminds me of PDF
I'm yet to dig the code on how pagination is implemented but if the page breaks mimick word's - this is huge!
Does it become exponentially harder to add the missing features or can you add everything else you need in another two days? I'm guessing the former but would be interested to see what happens.
Are you going to continue trying? I ask because it's only been two days and you're already on Show HN. It seems like if you waited for it to be more complete, it would have been more impressive.
1. I don't know what the "Docxtemplater" button does, but it eats my document without warning and that's annoying.
2. It would be nice if the page came with some example .docx files we could see it work on.
Please auto-ban any "We gave Claude/Gemini/Grok/OpenAO/Qwen/Mistral/WhateverLLMAI the spec and..."
"and..." resolves to:
- "and now we have this impressive result you won't believe!"
100% of the time this is attention seeking, live debugging - no value at all.
Don't waste people's time. Any sound and reasonable story about results without misusing the public's eye is welcome, for example:
- One year after - 10 hard problems we found - extensive pro/contra comparison with other solutions - maintaining such a AI app for one year
Otherwise: please auto-ban.
The threshold for caring about experiments is exponentially higher in 2026 thanks to half baked vibe slop.
Non-functioning software and demoware comes fast and cheap, regardless of author.
> we gave Claude Code the OOXML spec
Having used the former a lot and read the latter in detail, uhhh…
Trim down the claims here, clarify the editor subset you plan to be supporting, and map the “last 90%”’s to honestly reflect the product you are pushing.
If “tables” and “images” aren’t there I’m quite skeptical about content controls and other key OOXML constructs being addressed meaningfully. The full OOXML footprint chokes OpenOffice out of procurements, rich OOXML documents choke half-way-there implementations (which was the whole point of the format).
As is pointed out elsewhere in the thread - there are fundamental constraints that have kept Google, Apple, and others from pursuing this route. Relatively simple docs are one thing, but OOXML is full of dragons and parity with Word has eluded more than a few tech giants.