Table of Contents

• 1. Package Class
• 2. Key Attributes
• 3. Loading and Saving
• 4. Benefits

Uniword uses a pure object-oriented approach where each XML file in the DOCX ZIP package is represented by a dedicated lutaml-model class. This eliminates the serialization/deserialization anti-pattern and provides perfect round-trip fidelity.

1. Package Class

The Docx::Package class is the top-level container for all parts of a DOCX file:

class Package < Lutaml::Model::Serializable
  # Metadata (fully modeled)
  attribute :core_properties, CoreProperties      # docProps/core.xml
  attribute :app_properties, AppProperties        # docProps/app.xml

  # Theme (fully modeled)
  attribute :theme, Theme                         # word/theme/theme1.xml

  # Document content (in progress)
  attribute :document, Document                   # word/document.xml
  attribute :styles, StylesConfiguration          # word/styles.xml
  # ... other parts

  def self.from_file(path)
    # Load DOCX and deserialize all parts
  end

  def to_file(path)
    # Serialize all parts and package as DOCX
  end
end

2. Key Attributes

Each attribute maps directly to an XML part inside the DOCX ZIP:

Attribute	XML Part	Description
core_properties	docProps/core.xml	Dublin Core metadata (title, author, dates)
app_properties	docProps/app.xml	Application metadata (pages, words, characters)
theme	word/theme/theme1.xml	Theme definition (colors, fonts, formatting)
document	word/document.xml	Main document body (paragraphs, tables, sections)
styles	word/styles.xml	Style definitions (paragraph, character, table)

3. Loading and Saving

# Load an existing DOCX file
package = Docx::Package.from_file('document.docx')

# Access document content
paragraphs = package.document.body.paragraphs

# Modify content
package.document.body.add_paragraph("New paragraph")

# Save back to file
package.to_file('modified.docx')

4. Benefits

Zero hardcoding

All XML generation is handled by lutaml-model, not string concatenation.

Type safety

Strong typing for all attributes means type errors are caught early.

Perfect round-trip

Model serialization guarantees that all content is preserved during load/save cycles.

Easy testing

Each model class is independently testable without needing a full DOCX package.

Maintainability

Changes to OOXML handling are isolated to model definitions, not scattered across the codebase.