Finder search not seeing Word doc contents

To get the most out of the Finder search process, I have the following Finder Preferences configured:

• General : New Finder windows show: home folder (login name with a house icon).
• Advanced : When performing a search : Search the Current Folder

The second option will show on the results sub-panel as the current directory name in quotes, with This Mac to its left. If nothing is found in the current directory, then one clicks This Mac to expand the search.

It is a good idea to not search for an article (e.g. the), but to search for a quoted string enclosing the article, adjective, or noun that follows.

The Finder Get Info treats all Word documents as kind:Microsoft Word Document. Spotlight treats all .doc files as kind:Microsoft Word Document (or kind:word for short). However, it treats all .docx as kind:3rd party formats (or kind:3rd +.doc for short). Ordinarily, you should be able to enter a properly refined search string and either tool should locate the document. But sometimes, one must use the kind:3rd format with a refined string to find the Word .docx document. This is a PITA.

I wrote a Spotlight independent, Python program that given a search string and starting path, will return the path of all Word .doc/x files containing the search string.

I have the current version of Word (16.10) and search is working for me both in Finder with contents contains and also in Spotlight Search. Doesn't help much other than to indicate that it can work with contents of Word documents created with that version.