What Can It Do?

word-mcp-live lets any AI assistant that supports MCP work with Microsoft Word like a human would. Open a document, tell the AI what you need, and watch it happen — formatting, tracked changes, comments, and all.

Just tell the AI what you want in plain language:

"Draft a contract with tracked changes so my colleague can review"
"Format all headings as Cambria 13pt bold and add automatic numbering"
"Add a comment on paragraph 3 asking about the deadline"
"Find every mention of 'ABC Corp' and replace with 'XYZ Ltd' as a tracked change"
"Set the page to A4 landscape with 2cm margins"
"Insert a table of contents based on the document headings"
"Add page numbers in the footer and our company name in the header"

Key Capabilities

• Edit documents while they're open — no save-close-reopen cycle
• Track every change — insertions, deletions, and replacements all appear as tracked changes your team can review
• Undo anything — every AI action is a single Ctrl+Z in Word
• Add comments — anchored to specific text, just like a human reviewer
• Format professionally — fonts, styles, headings, automatic numbering, tables, watermarks
• Read any part — extract text by page, search with context, get document structure
• Full layout control — margins, orientation, headers, footers, page numbers, section breaks
• Works on any OS — core features work on Windows, macOS, and Linux

Two Modes

Both modes work together. The AI picks the right one for the task.

Getting Started

Install

git clone https://github.com/ykarapazar/word-mcp-live.git
cd word-mcp-live
pip install -e .

Claude Desktop

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "word": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/word-mcp-live/word_mcp_server.py"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_AUTHOR": "Your Name",
        "MCP_AUTHOR_INITIALS": "YN"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

Add to your .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "word": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/word-mcp-live/word_mcp_server.py"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_AUTHOR": "Your Name",
        "MCP_AUTHOR_INITIALS": "YN"
      }
    }
  }
}

About MCP_AUTHOR: Set this to your name so that tracked changes and comments show your name instead of "AI Assistant". MCP_AUTHOR_INITIALS sets the initials shown on comments.

Configuration

For remote deployment, see RENDER_DEPLOYMENT.md.

Tool Reference

See the complete tool reference for all capabilities, organized by category.

Compared to the Original

This project builds on GongRzhe/Office-Word-MCP-Server with significant additions:

• Windows Live editing — COM automation for editing documents open in Word
• Per-operation undo — every tool call is a single Ctrl+Z entry in Word's undo stack
• Tracked changes — both OOXML-based (cross-platform) and native Word revisions (Windows)
• Comments — add and read comments anchored to specific text
• Layout diagnostics — detect formatting problems like keep_with_next chains and heading misuse
• New cross-platform tools — hyperlinks, footnotes, endnotes, protection, digital signatures
• Multiple transports — stdio, SSE, and streamable-http for remote deployment
• Configurable author — MCP_AUTHOR for tracked changes and comments

Requirements

• Python 3.11+
• python-docx, fastmcp, msoffcrypto-tool (installed automatically by pip install -e .)
• Windows Live tools only: Windows 10/11 + Microsoft Word + pywin32

The cross-platform tools work without Word installed — only python-docx is needed.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup, code style, and how to add new tools.

Found a bug? Open an issue. Have an idea? Request a feature.

Acknowledgments

Built on top of GongRzhe/Office-Word-MCP-Server by GongRzhe (MIT License).

Additional libraries: python-docx · FastMCP · pywin32

License

MIT License — see LICENSE for details.