Office Word MCP server

Office-Word-MCP-Server is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that enables AI assistants to create, read, and manipulate Microsoft Word documents through a standardized interface. It provides rich document editing capabilities, allowing for document creation, content addition, formatting, and analysis without requiring direct access to Microsoft Word.

Installation Options

Installing via Smithery

To automatically install the Office Word Document Server for Claude Desktop:

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

Manual Installation

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, use the provided setup script which handles prerequisites, virtual environment setup, dependencies, and MCP configuration:

python setup_mcp.py

Configuration for Claude Desktop

Method 1: After Local 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)

Configure Claude for Desktop to use the server without local installation:

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

Configuration file locations:

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

Remember to restart Claude for Desktop after configuration changes.

Usage Examples

Once configured, you can ask Claude to perform operations such as:

• "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"
• "Insert a bulleted list after the paragraph containing 'Introduction'"
• "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'"
• "Extract all comments from my document"
• "Make the text in table cell (1,2) bold and blue with 14pt font"
• "Create a callout table with a blue checkmark icon and white text"

Feature Overview

Document Management

• Create new Word documents with metadata
• Extract text and analyze document structure
• List available documents in a directory
• Create copies of documents
• Convert Word documents to PDF

Content Creation

• Add headings with different levels and formatting
• Insert paragraphs with optional styling
• Create tables with custom data
• Add images with proportional scaling
• Insert bulleted and numbered lists
• Add footnotes and endnotes

Rich Text Formatting

• Format text sections (bold, italic, underline)
• Change text color and font properties
• Apply custom styles to text elements
• Search and replace text throughout documents

Table Formatting

• Format tables with borders and styles
• Create header rows with distinct formatting
• Apply cell shading and custom borders
• Control cell alignment and padding
• Merge cells horizontally or vertically
• Manage column widths with different units

Troubleshooting

Common Issues

1. Missing Styles

   • Some documents may lack required styles
   • The server will attempt to create missing styles or use direct formatting

2. Permission Issues

   • Ensure the server has permission to read/write to document paths
   • Use the copy_document function to create editable copies of locked documents

3. Image Insertion Problems

   • Use absolute paths for image files
   • Verify image format compatibility (JPEG, PNG recommended)

4. Table Formatting Issues

   • Ensure row and column indices are within table bounds (0-based indexing)
   • Use hex colors without '#' prefix or standard color names
   • Apply cell text formatting after setting cell content for best results

Enabling Debug Mode

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

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "word-document-server" '{"command":"python","args":["/path/to/word_mcp_server.py"]}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

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

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

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

2. Add this to your configuration file:

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

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect