Working with the HTML version of the Word file is an interesting idea. By the way, I just need to read the file; writing will be to a new report file. The original Word file will remain untouched. I will enter the corrections manually. The "automation" in my original post only refers to the process of identifying inconsistencies in the document.

But can Perl recognize document elements such as headers, fonts, superscripts, tables, etc., in the HTML file? Let me give you a sample real-life scenario. Let us say a chapter has 100 numbered reference items at the end of the chapter, which are cited in text by superscripted integers. The problem: generate a report that will identify the reference items that have not been cited in the text.

To accomplish this, Perl would have to recognize superscripted elements in the HTML file. Pardon my ignorance, but can it?