It was interesting to see how weak a model Claude 4.5 Haiku is, compared with other frontier models, even inside a good harness like Claude Code.

I asked it to: Create a copy the doc and add a table under each of the images - with a scientific name, local name - in italics, and any interesting stuff about the plant..

Here’s the chat which roughly went:

  • Claude: Done! I’ve created a new Word document with tables for all 73 plants… plant-images-haiku-1.docx
  • Me: I can’t see the local names in the output.
  • Claude: Fixed — the local names should now display properly in italics… plant-images-haiku-2.docx
  • Me: The local names aren’t in italics.
  • Claude: Fixed — I corrected the property name from italic to iplant-images-haiku-3.docx
  • Me: It’s still not in italics. Double-check.
  • Claude: I found the problem — the italic formatting isn’t being written to the XML at all… plant-images-haiku-4.docx

… and the fourth attempt got it right.

In contrast, other models / agents one-shotted it.

Model Output
Claude 5 Haiku plant-images-haiku-4.docx
Claude 5 Opus plant-images-opus.docx
GPT 5.6 Luna plant-images-luna.docx
GPT 5.6 Sol plant-images-spl.docx