Legacy Word

DOC · WORD 97–2003

parseDoc returns a DocDocument with stable main-body paragraph handles. Supported text setters preserve opaque binary records and serialize the edited compound file without reconstructing unsupported content.

Actual character runs

paragraph.runs maps CLX pieces and CHPX formatting pages to character positions. styleIndex reads the PAPX paragraph style identifier.

• Direct bold/italic/font-size/underline values are exposed separately from inherited or undecoded styling. Unknown SPRMs remain opaque.
• directUnderline replaces an existing exclusive sprmCKul operand with none, single or double; other underline styles and inherited slots refuse. Native Word save/reopen checks retain all other captured formatting.
• Existing exclusive understood bold/italic operands can be set to absolute values. directFontSizePoints can replace an existing exclusive sprmCHps slot with 1..1638 points in exact half-point increments. Shared blobs, opaque semantics and missing slots refuse.
• Run handles expire after edits; reacquire paragraph.runs. Styles and piece PRMs are not resolved.

Direct paragraph alignment

paragraph.directAlignment exposes logical start, center, end or justify, separately from inherited styles.

• An existing exclusive modern PAPX alignment operand can be replaced; matching legacy mirrors admit center/justify and update both slots.
• Shared, opaque, conflicting or direction-dependent mirrored formatting refuses. Aggregate SPRM allocation is bounded to 262,144 records.
• Native Word center/justify and save/reopen comparisons preserve other captured formatting; restoration is byte-exact.

Document model

Read paragraph.text and assign supported replacement text, then call serialize(). Successful edits mark dirty and increment revision.

• Equal-length plain targets retain runs and character-position tables when the encoding fits.
• Physical text ranges overlapping the FIB or referenced CHPX/PAPX pages refuse before patching. Formatting-page descriptor scans are bounded to 65,536 per table; malformed-fixture regressions verify atomic refusal.
• Field-range guards also apply to equal-length edits: a plain paragraph inside a multi-paragraph field result is refused, including fields omitted from the field PLC.
• Guarded growth/shrink outside balanced main-story fields shifts field positions while preserving codes, results and flags.
• Growth validates section CP bounds/order and refuses section or field tables aliased by another FIB table before changing any bytes. Derived malformed-fixture tests cover these guards; they do not add native Word validation evidence.
• Rejected setters throw UnsupportedOle2EditError before changing bytes or model state.

Explicit limits

The paragraph collection has fixed structure. Rich runs expose a bounded direct-formatting slice; tables, fields, styles and drawings are preserved without complete editable models.

• No paragraph insertion/removal or embedded paragraph breaks.
• Edits inside field code/result ranges and unsupported CP-dependent features are refused.
• Bookmark-dependent growth remains unsupported; equal-length edits outside guarded field ranges preserve existing bookmark positions.
• Bookmark prerequisites and fixture audit explain the retained refusal and the primary layout constraints.
• Processing budgets and supported container layout limits apply; no fresh-document writer is implied.

Compatibility APIs

readOleDocParagraphs and tryWriteOleDocParagraphEdit remain available. New code should navigate the document model.

Example

import { parseDoc } from '@christophervr/ole2';

const document = parseDoc(docBytes);
console.log(document.paragraphs[0].text);
document.paragraphs[0].text = 'A longer plain paragraph outside fields.';
const saved = document.serialize();