Office Files

Office Files

Use the OOMOL Hermes Agent image-provided Office stack. Do not install replacement document libraries at runtime before trying the supported tools below.

Default tools

• Use markitdown first for model-readable extraction from ordinary .docx, .xlsx, and simple .pptx files.
• Use python-docx for structured Word .docx creation or updates.
• Use openpyxl for structured Excel .xlsx or .xlsm creation or updates. Use defusedxml-safe parsing paths for untrusted XML-adjacent content.
• Use python-pptx for basic PowerPoint .pptx creation, inspection, or patching. Complex beautification, template filling, animations, and high-fidelity presentation generation are outside this skill's guarantee.
• Use pandoc for Markdown-to-Word and similar document conversions.
• Use LibreOffice through soffice --headless for Office-to-PDF export, format conversion, and legacy .doc, .xls, or .ppt handling.
• Use the bundled pdf-files skill for native PDF creation, AcroForm filling, static PDF delivery, verification, and digital signatures.

Runtime

Use the image-provided Python environment directly:

/opt/hermes/.venv/bin/python

The OOMOL image installs markitdown, docx, openpyxl, pptx, and defusedxml into this interpreter. It also installs LibreOffice, Pandoc, and CJK fonts during the image build.

Do not install Office packages at runtime. Check only the tool needed for the current task instead of probing every binary and Python module at once.

PowerPoint boundary

This skill provides deterministic, basic .pptx work through python-pptx. It does not include the old repository's PPT Master workflow. Convert legacy .ppt input to .pptx with LibreOffice first, or export it to PDF when editable structure is not required.

PDF boundary

Office-to-PDF export stays in this skill: use LibreOffice for .docx, .xlsx, .pptx, .doc, .xls, or .ppt conversion.

Native PDF work belongs to pdf-files: creating PDFs from scratch, creating or filling AcroForms, flattening content into a static deliverable, inspecting fields, verifying rendering and structure, or adding a test/real signature.

LibreOffice runtime profile

LibreOffice must not write state under /opt/hermes. Use a unique writable profile for each concurrent conversion, for example:

profile_dir="$(mktemp -d /tmp/libreoffice-profile.XXXXXX)"
soffice --headless --nologo --nofirststartwizard --norestore \
  -env:UserInstallation="file://${profile_dir}" \
  --convert-to pdf --outdir /tmp/out /path/to/input.docx

Remove the temporary profile after the conversion. Write user documents and generated files under the requested workspace path, never under /opt/hermes.

Verification

• Read created Office files back with their corresponding Python library.
• Use MarkItDown to confirm representative visible text when extraction is part of the request.
• For conversion, confirm LibreOffice exits successfully and the output file is non-empty.
• For Office-to-PDF delivery, use the pdf-files verification path when visual correctness matters.

Limits

Legacy binary formats are conversion-only best effort. High-fidelity layout, complex macros, password-protected files, embedded OLE objects, and proprietary fonts are outside the default strong guarantee.