Automate Microsoft Word Document Creation and Editing

Office-Word-MCP-Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for creating, reading, and manipulating Microsoft Word documents. This server enables AI assistants to work with Word documents through a standardized interface, providing rich document editing capabilities.

Overview

Office-Word-MCP-Server implements the Model Context Protocol to expose Word document operations as tools and resources. It serves as a bridge between AI assistants and Microsoft Word documents, allowing for document creation, content addition, formatting, and analysis.

The server features a modular architecture that separates concerns into core functionality, tools, and utilities, making it highly maintainable and extensible for future enhancements.

Example

Pormpt

Output

Features

Document Management

• Create new Word documents with metadata
• Extract text and analyze document structure
• View document properties and statistics
• List available documents in a directory
• Create copies of existing documents
• Merge multiple documents into a single document
• Convert Word documents to PDF format

Content Creation

• Add headings with different levels and direct formatting (font, size, bold, italic, borders)
• Insert paragraphs with optional styling and direct formatting (font, size, bold, italic, color)
• Create tables with custom data
• Add images with proportional scaling
• Insert page breaks
• Insert bulleted and numbered lists with proper XML formatting
• Add footnotes and endnotes to documents
• Convert footnotes to endnotes
• Customize footnote and endnote styling
• Create professional table layouts for technical documentation
• Design callout boxes and formatted content for instructional materials
• Build structured data tables for business reports with consistent styling
• Insert content relative to existing text or paragraph indices

Rich Text Formatting

• Format specific text sections (bold, italic, underline)
• Change text color and font properties
• Apply custom styles to text elements
• Search and replace text throughout documents
• Individual cell text formatting within tables
• Multiple formatting combinations for enhanced visual appeal
• Font customization with family and size control
• Direct formatting during content creation (paragraphs and headings)
• Reduce function calls by combining content creation with formatting
• Add section header borders for visual separation

Table Formatting

• Format tables with borders and styles
• Create header rows with distinct formatting
• Apply cell shading and custom borders
• Structure tables for better readability
• Individual cell background shading with color support
• Alternating row colors for improved readability
• Enhanced header row highlighting with custom colors
• Cell text formatting with bold, italic, underline, color, font size, and font family
• Comprehensive color support with named colors and hex color codes
• Cell padding management with independent control of all sides
• Cell alignment (horizontal and vertical positioning)
• Cell merging (horizontal, vertical, and rectangular areas)
• Column width management with multiple units (points, percentage, auto-fit)
• Auto-fit capabilities for dynamic column sizing
• Professional callout table support with icon cells and styled content

Advanced Document Manipulation

• Delete paragraphs
• Insert content relative to specific text or paragraph indices
• Insert bulleted and numbered lists with proper XML numbering structure
• Insert headers and paragraphs before or after target locations
• Create custom document styles
• Apply consistent formatting throughout documents
• Format specific ranges of text with detailed control
• Flexible padding units with support for points and percentage-based measurements
• Clear, readable table presentation with proper alignment and spacing

Document Protection

• Add password protection to documents
• Implement restricted editing with editable sections
• Add digital signatures to documents
• Verify document authenticity and integrity

Comment Extraction

• Extract all comments from a document
• Filter comments by author
• Get comments for specific paragraphs
• Access comment metadata (author, date, text)

Installation

Installing via Smithery

To install Office Word Document Server for Claude Desktop automatically via Smithery:

npx -y @smithery/cli install @GongRzhe/Office-Word-MCP-Server --client claude

Prerequisites

• Python 3.8 or higher
• pip package manager

Basic Installation

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/GongRzhe/Office-Word-MCP-Server.git
cd Office-Word-MCP-Server

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

Using the Setup Script

Alternatively, you can use the provided setup script which handles:

• Checking prerequisites
• Setting up a virtual environment
• Installing dependencies
• Generating MCP configuration

python setup_mcp.py

Usage with Claude for Desktop

Configuration

Method 1: After Local Installation

1. After installation, add the server to your Claude for Desktop configuration file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "word-document-server": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["/path/to/word_mcp_server.py"]
    }
  }
}

Method 2: Without Installation (Using uvx)

1. You can also configure Claude for Desktop to use the server without local installation by using the uvx package manager:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "word-document-server": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "office-word-mcp-server", "word_mcp_server"]
    }
  }
}

2. Configuration file locations:

   • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
   • Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

3. Restart Claude for Desktop to load the configuration.

Example Operations

Once configured, you can ask Claude to perform operations like:

• "Create a new document called 'report.docx' with a title page"
• "Add a heading and three paragraphs to my document"
• "Add my name in Helvetica 36pt bold at the top of the document"
• "Add a section heading 'Summary' in Helvetica 14pt bold with a bottom border"
• "Add a paragraph in Times New Roman 14pt with italic blue text"
• "Insert a bulleted list after the paragraph containing 'Introduction'"
• "Insert a numbered list with items: 'First step', 'Second step', 'Third step'"
• "Add bullet points after the 'Summary' heading"
• "Insert a 4x4 table with sales data"
• "Format the word 'important' in paragraph 2 to be bold and red"
• "Search and replace all instances of 'old term' with 'new term'"
• "Create a custom style for section headings"
• "Apply formatting to the table in my document"
• "Extract all comments from my document"
• "Show me all comments by John Doe"
• "Get comments for paragraph 3"
• "Make the text in table cell (1,2) bold and blue with 14pt font"
• "Add 10 points of padding to all sides of the header cells"
• "Create a callout table with a blue checkmark icon and white text"
• "Set the first column width to 50 points and auto-fit the remaining columns"
• "Apply alternating row colors to make the table more readable"

API Reference

Document Creation and Properties

create_document(filename, title=None, author=None)
get_document_info(filename)
get_document_text(filename)
get_document_outline(filename)
list_available_documents(directory=".")
copy_document(source_filename, destination_filename=None)
convert_to_pdf(filename, output_filename=None)

Content Addition

add_heading(filename, text, level=1, font_name=None, font_size=None,
            bold=None, italic=None, border_bottom=False)
add_paragraph(filename, text, style=None, font_name=None, font_size=None,
              bold=None, italic=None, color=None)
add_table(filename, rows, cols, data=None)
add_picture(filename, image_path, width=None)
add_page_break(filename)

Advanced Content Manipulation

# Insert content relative to existing text or paragraph index
insert_header_near_text(filename, target_text=None, header_title=None,
                       position='after', header_style='Heading 1',
                       target_paragraph_index=None)

insert_line_or_paragraph_near_text(filename, target_text=None, line_text=None,
                                   position='after', line_style=None,
                                   target_paragraph_index=None)

# Insert bulleted or numbered lists with proper XML formatting
insert_numbered_list_near_text(filename, target_text=None, list_items=None,
                              position='after', target_paragraph_index=None,
                              bullet_type='bullet')
# bullet_type options:
#   'bullet' - Creates bulleted list with bullets (•)
#   'number' - Creates numbered list (1, 2, 3, ...)

Content Extraction

get_document_text(filename)
get_paragraph_text_from_document(filename, paragraph_index)
find_text_in_document(filename, text_to_find, match_case=True, whole_word=False)

Text Formatting

format_text(filename, paragraph_index, start_pos, end_pos, bold=None,
            italic=None, underline=None, color=None, font_size=None, font_name=None)
search_and_replace(filename, find_text, replace_text)
delete_paragraph(filename, paragraph_index)
create_custom_style(filename, style_name, bold=None, italic=None,
                    font_size=None, font_name=None, color=None, base_style=None)

Table Formatting

format_table(filename, table_index, has_header_row=None,
             border_style=None, shading=None)
set_table_cell_shading(filename, table_index, row_index, col_index, 
                      fill_color, pattern="clear")
apply_table_alternating_rows(filename, table_index, 
                            color1="FFFFFF", color2="F2F2F2")
highlight_table_header(filename, table_index, 
                      header_color="4472C4", text_color="FFFFFF")

# Cell merging tools
merge_table_cells(filename, table_index, start_row, start_col, end_row, end_col)
merge_table_cells_horizontal(filename, table_index, row_index, start_col, end_col)
merge_table_cells_vertical(filename, table_index, col_index, start_row, end_row)

# Cell alignment tools
set_table_cell_alignment(filename, table_index, row_index, col_index,
                        horizontal="left", vertical="top")
set_table_alignment_all(filename, table_index, 
                       horizontal="left", vertical="top")

# Cell text formatting tools
format_table_cell_text(filename, table_index, row_index, col_index,
                      text_content=None, bold=None, italic=None, underline=None,
                      color=None, font_size=None, font_name=None)

# Cell padding tools
set_table_cell_padding(filename, table_index, row_index, col_index,
                      top=None, bottom=None, left=None, right=None, unit="points")

# Column width management
set_table_column_width(filename, table_index, col_index, width, width_type="points")
set_table_column_widths(filename, table_index, widths, width_type="points")
set_table_width(filename, table_index, width, width_type="points")
auto_fit_table_columns(filename, table_index)

Comment Extraction

get_all_comments(filename)
get_comments_by_author(filename, author)
get_comments_for_paragraph(filename, paragraph_index)

Troubleshooting

Common Issues

1. Missing Styles

   • Some documents may lack required styles for heading and table operations
   • The server will attempt to create missing styles or use direct formatting
   • For best results, use templates with standard Word styles

2. Permission Issues

   • Ensure the server has permission to read/write to the document paths
   • Use the copy_document function to create editable copies of locked documents
   • Check file ownership and permissions if operations fail

3. Image Insertion Problems

   • Use absolute paths for image files
   • Verify image format compatibility (JPEG, PNG recommended)
   • Check image file size and permissions

4. Table Formatting Issues

   • Cell index errors: Ensure row and column indices are within table bounds (0-based indexing)
   • Color format problems: Use hex colors without '#' prefix (e.g., "FF0000" for red) or standard color names
   • Padding unit confusion: Specify "points" or "percent" explicitly when setting cell padding
   • Column width conflicts: Auto-fit may override manual column width settings
   • Text formatting persistence: Apply cell text formatting after setting cell content for best results

Debugging

Enable detailed logging by setting the environment variable:

export MCP_DEBUG=1  # Linux/macOS
set MCP_DEBUG=1     # Windows