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OfficeCLI: Office suite for AI agents to read and edit Microsoft Office files

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Re: OfficeCLI: Office suite for AI agents to read and edit Microsoft Office files

#21
post #13
post #3

Nice, but I don't see a lot of ECMA 376 test cases. Both https://github.com/rcarmo/python-office-mcp-server and https://github.com/rcarmo/go-ooxml are ECMA 376 compliant (I made sure), because for headless generation and handling that's kind of important :) Oh, and you're not the first, I started this a year ago. :)

Your tools don't render the file though and python-pptx hasn't been updated in 2 years.

AI has zero need to see the renders (you are just wasting tokens) and that is why I built the Go version - I patched a lot of the PPTX code in my MCP server, as it happens.

Re: OfficeCLI: Office suite for AI agents to read and edit Microsoft Office files

#22

Feel like overnight I suddenly started seeing so much stuff and comments on here concerning generating Office documents with the LLMs. What could be driving this? Doesn't latex or similar seem like a better fit here?

People want to generate corporate content. For years now, it comes and goes.

Re: OfficeCLI: Office suite for AI agents to read and edit Microsoft Office files

#23
post #17
post #4

I went in the opposite direction and built https://smalldocs.org/ , which is an office suite AI agents (and humans - including SWEs!) like to use. I say it’s as if “Claude Code & Microsoft Office had a baby...” Code available: https://github.com/espressoplease/smalldocs Discord: https://discord.gg/txjATTsDaq Sample document: https://smalldocs.org/blogs/what-is-a-smalldoc Invoked via Claude Code by saying stuff like:…

This is really neat! I have been thinking about similar problems. Is there a way to collaborate with multiple agents or people on the same doc? It is unclear to me.

Multiple agents could write to the doc locally, but for the moment it’s not predominantly could based (only short links). I think I will build a cloud first version/offering/config soon

Re: OfficeCLI: Office suite for AI agents to read and edit Microsoft Office files

#24
post #4

I went in the opposite direction and built https://smalldocs.org/ , which is an office suite AI agents (and humans - including SWEs!) like to use. I say it’s as if “Claude Code & Microsoft Office had a baby...” Code available: https://github.com/espressoplease/smalldocs Discord: https://discord.gg/txjATTsDaq Sample document: https://smalldocs.org/blogs/what-is-a-smalldoc Invoked via Claude Code by saying stuff like:…

Great job on this. I can see this being extremely useful for my teams!

Re: OfficeCLI: Office suite for AI agents to read and edit Microsoft Office files

#25
post #21
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your tools don't render the file though and python-pptx hasn't been updated in 2 years.

AI has zero need to see the renders (you are just wasting tokens) and that is why I built the Go version - I patched a lot of the PPTX code in my MCP server, as it happens.

while i appreciate that you are working on something to give away for free, providing your own little world of value... your comment makes it sound like you've never made powerpoints before. of course, there are a bajillion powerpoints out there in the wild that layer white rectangles to erase stuff from screenshots of charts, among numerous other atrocities

Re: OfficeCLI: Office suite for AI agents to read and edit Microsoft Office files

#26
post #24
post #4

I went in the opposite direction and built https://smalldocs.org/ , which is an office suite AI agents (and humans - including SWEs!) like to use. I say it’s as if “Claude Code & Microsoft Office had a baby...” Code available: https://github.com/espressoplease/smalldocs Discord: https://discord.gg/txjATTsDaq Sample document: https://smalldocs.org/blogs/what-is-a-smalldoc Invoked via Claude Code by saying stuff like:…

Great job on this. I can see this being extremely useful for my teams!

Thanks, please could you email me at hi@smalldocs.org. I’m trying to learn how to make this a better experience for teams, so would love to work with you guys to optimise the experience.

Re: OfficeCLI: Office suite for AI agents to read and edit Microsoft Office files

#29
post #4

I went in the opposite direction and built https://smalldocs.org/ , which is an office suite AI agents (and humans - including SWEs!) like to use. I say it’s as if “Claude Code & Microsoft Office had a baby...” Code available: https://github.com/espressoplease/smalldocs Discord: https://discord.gg/txjATTsDaq Sample document: https://smalldocs.org/blogs/what-is-a-smalldoc Invoked via Claude Code by saying stuff like:…

I built some scripts to do something similar but all local. It also live updates the document so you can see changes come through. Super useful

Re: OfficeCLI: Office suite for AI agents to read and edit Microsoft Office files

#30
post #6
post #4

I went in the opposite direction and built https://smalldocs.org/ , which is an office suite AI agents (and humans - including SWEs!) like to use. I say it’s as if “Claude Code & Microsoft Office had a baby...” Code available: https://github.com/espressoplease/smalldocs Discord: https://discord.gg/txjATTsDaq Sample document: https://smalldocs.org/blogs/what-is-a-smalldoc Invoked via Claude Code by saying stuff like:…

Neat! I think agents making Word docs and PowerPoints is going to go away. I think something like small docs is the future.

I don't think the corporate world is moving away from Word and PowerPoint anytime soon.
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