Skill of the day: document-skills

Radar: anthropics document-skills marketplace pack for doc/xlsx/pptx workflows - what it is, when to use, install path, honest limits.

document-skills is the official Anthropic marketplace plugin that bundles four Agent Skills for Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and PDF. Register the anthropics/skills marketplace, install document-skills@anthropic-agent-skills, then ask Claude to use the matching skill on a file job. Marketplace metadata version on the catalog entry: 1.0.0 (marketplace field - not a per-skill semver). Checked 2026-09-14.

TL;DR. Four skills, one plugin. Install with the README commands below. Document skills are source-available / proprietary, not Apache like many example skills in the same repo. Pair with academy-guide (learn) and discernment-nudge (verify after acting).

What’s in the plugin

Marketplace description: “Collection of document processing suite including Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and PDF capabilities.” Skill paths from marketplace.json:

Skill	Path	Job (from SKILL.md, one line)
`xlsx`	`./skills/xlsx`	Spreadsheet create/edit/analysis - openpyxl/pandas; formulas + LibreOffice recalc
`docx`	`./skills/docx`	Word `.docx` / `.dotx` create, edit, tracked changes, comments (docx-js / unzip+XML)
`pptx`	`./skills/pptx`	Decks / templates create & edit (pptxgenjs; visual QA via PDF/images)
`pdf`	`./skills/pdf`	Read, merge, split, create, OCR, forms toolkit (pypdf, pdfplumber, reportlab, …)

Each SKILL.md marks license: Proprietary. LICENSE.txt has complete terms. Treat them as the production-style reference Anthropic ships for document work - not as a free-for-all open-source fork target.

When to use / when not

Use when the primary input or output is a document file: .xlsx / .xlsm / .csv, .docx / .dotx, .pptx / .potx, or .pdf.

Do not (each skill’s own Do NOT triggers, compressed):

Primary deliverable is plain code, HTML-only reports, Google Docs/Sheets API work, or non-document jobs
Expect a magic Office UI without the local tooling the skill scripts assume (LibreOffice, pandoc, poppler, etc.)

Field note: pick the skill that matches the file type. Don’t treat the four as one mental blob.

The Claude moves worth stealing, by email

Workflows tested on real jobs, sent only when they are worth it. Free.

Install (Claude Code)

Exact README commands:

/plugin marketplace add anthropics/skills

Then either Browse - anthropic-agent-skills - document-skills - Install now, or:

/plugin install document-skills@anthropic-agent-skills

After install, mention the skill - README example: Use the PDF skill to extract the form fields from path/to/some-file.pdf.

Also available on Claude.ai paid plans and via the Claude API Skills guide - mention only; this radar stays Code/marketplace-first.

Limits & license

README: skills are demo/reference; Claude product behavior may differ from the repo
Document skills under skills/{xlsx,docx,pptx,pdf} are source-available, not Apache open source like many example-skills entries - cite each skill’s LICENSE.txt if you redistribute or dig deep
Heavy scripts + LibreOffice in sandboxed environments - not a one-click chat toy
No invented plugin CLI flags beyond the marketplace install path above

Pair with prior radars

Radar	Moment
Skill of the day: `academy-guide`	Learning / onboarding - recommend Academy items
Skill of the day: `discernment-nudge`	After an actable answer - check facts, reasoning, gaps
`document-skills`	The deliverable is a spreadsheet, deck, Word file, or PDF

Learn - produce a document - nudge yourself to verify assumptions in the deck or numbers.

Sources (checked 2026-09-14)

marketplace.json - plugin document-skills; skills paths; metadata version 1.0.0
anthropics/skills README - install commands; source-available document skills note; disclaimer
SKILL.md headers: xlsx · docx · pptx · pdf

Where to go next

See Claude Skills and Create a Claude Code skill.