GroupDocs.Editor MCP Server

Let Claude, Cursor, GitHub Copilot and any other MCP agent edit Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF and text documents without wrecking their formatting — replace text in place, round-trip a document (or one worksheet, slide or PDF page range) through editable HTML, and fill Word form fields. Locally: your files never leave your machine.

Install in 60 seconds

One-click installs pre-fill every supported setting: edit the placeholder documents folder after install (output defaults to the same folder); an empty GROUPDOCS_LICENSE_PATH runs in evaluation mode - point it at your license to lift limits.

More clients - ready-made configs for Claude Code, Codex CLI, Visual Studio 2022, Cursor, Windsurf, Cline, and JetBrains Rider live in install/generated/.

Requires the .NET 10 SDK for native runs — or skip straight to Docker.

Run directly with dnx (recommended — no install step):

dnx GroupDocs.Editor.Mcp --yes

Pulls the latest stable release on every invocation. To pin a version (recommended for shared configs and CI), append @<version>:

dnx GroupDocs.Editor.Mcp@26.10.0 --yes

The server reads and writes documents in GROUPDOCS_MCP_STORAGE_PATH (default: the current directory). Edited copies are saved next to the originals and never overwrite an existing file.

Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "groupdocs-editor": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "dnx",
      "args": ["GroupDocs.Editor.Mcp", "--yes"],
      "env": {
        "GROUPDOCS_MCP_STORAGE_PATH": "/path/to/documents"
      }
    }
  }
}

To use a license, add "GROUPDOCS_LICENSE_PATH": "/path/to/GroupDocs.Editor.lic" to env — omit it to run in evaluation mode.

Claude Code

claude mcp add groupdocs-editor -- dnx GroupDocs.Editor.Mcp --yes

VS Code / GitHub Copilot

Use the Install in VS Code button above, or copy the ready-made snippet from the NuGet package page into .vscode/mcp.json, or take install/generated/vscode-mcp.json from this repo.

Visual Studio 2022 (17.14+)

Create .mcp.json in your solution root with the contents of install/generated/vs2022-mcp.json.

Cursor · Windsurf · Cline · Rider · Codex

• Cursor — use the Add to Cursor button above, or paste install/generated/claude-desktop.json into ~/.cursor/mcp.json.

• Windsurf — follow install/generated/windsurf.md.

• Cline — paste install/generated/cline.json into Cline's MCP settings.

• JetBrains Rider — follow install/generated/rider.md.

• Codex CLI — codex mcp add groupdocs-editor -- dnx GroupDocs.Editor.Mcp --yes, details in install/generated/codex.md.

Docker

docker run --rm -i \
  -v "$(pwd)/documents:/data" \
  ghcr.io/groupdocs-editor/editor-net-mcp:latest

Images are published to GHCR (ghcr.io/groupdocs-editor/editor-net-mcp) and Docker Hub (groupdocs/editor-net-mcp) for linux/amd64 + linux/arm64, tagged latest plus an immutable version tag matching each NuGet release (e.g. :26.10.0). The image needs no native setup.

Docker on Linux: run the container as your user

The image runs as a non-root user (uid 1654), and a bind mount keeps its host owner — so on a Linux host every edited file the server writes into /data fails with Permission denied unless the container runs as you:

docker run --rm -i --user "$(id -u):$(id -g)" \
  -v "$(pwd)/documents:/data" \
  ghcr.io/groupdocs-editor/editor-net-mcp:latest

JSON client configs run no shell, so put the numbers in: "args": ["run", "--rm", "-i", "--user", "1000:1000", …]. Docker Desktop on Windows and macOS does not need this.

Global dotnet tool

dotnet tool install -g GroupDocs.Editor.Mcp
groupdocs-editor-mcp

Related MCP server: docx_mcp_server_ts

Available MCP Tools

Worksheet, slide and page numbers are 1-based. Every failure sets isError and starts with the tool's prefix, e.g. HTML extraction failed for 'report.docx': …, so a client needs one check.

Example prompts for AI agents

Replace "ACME Corp" with "Globex" in contract.docx and keep the formatting.
Give me the second worksheet of budget.xlsx as HTML so I can edit it.
Save edited.html back as a Word document, and also as a PDF.
Fill the form fields in application.docx: name = Jane Doe, agree = yes.
Which formats can GroupDocs.Editor open and save?

Evaluation mode

The MCP server itself is MIT; the GroupDocs.Editor engine requires a license for production use. Without one every tool still works, with these limits (measured on GroupDocs.Editor 26.6.1):

• Edited output starts with an evaluation banner ("Created with evaluation version of GroupDocs.Editor …").

• A saved workbook gains an extra worksheet.

• Only the first 2 pages of a PDF, the first 2 (visible) worksheets of a workbook and the first 2 slides of a presentation can be edited. The engine would silently return part 2 for a higher number; the server refuses the request instead and says why. Saving an edited part back into worksheet or slide 3+ is not limited.

Responses of the editing tools then start with one Evaluation mode: line. Call get_license_status to see which mode is active.

Licensing

There are two ways to license the server.

License file — point GROUPDOCS_LICENSE_PATH at your GroupDocs.Editor (or GroupDocs.Total) license file. Works offline.

Metered (pay-per-use) — set both GROUPDOCS_METERED_PUBLIC_KEY and GROUPDOCS_METERED_PRIVATE_KEY. You pay for what you process, which suits agent workloads. If both a metered key pair and a license file are configured, metered wins and the file is ignored.

Metered mode needs outbound connectivity. Usage is reported to GroupDocs servers, so air-gapped or firewalled deployments must allow that egress — or use a license file instead.

Keeping the private key out of your config

The metered private key is a secret. MCP client configs are plain files, and a project-scoped .mcp.json is committed by convention, so prefer, in order:

1. Set the variables in your OS environment and leave them out of the config entirely — an stdio MCP server inherits its client's environment. On macOS an app launched from Finder does not inherit shell exports; use launchctl setenv or launch the client from a terminal.

2. Reference them indirectly if your client supports it (Claude Code expands ${VAR}; VS Code uses ${env:VAR} and ${input:...}).

3. A literal value in a user-scoped config (for example ~/.claude.json) is acceptable for a single developer.

4. Never commit a literal key in a project-scoped .mcp.json.

For Docker, forward the values without writing them into any file:

docker run --rm -i \
  -e GROUPDOCS_METERED_PUBLIC_KEY -e GROUPDOCS_METERED_PRIVATE_KEY \
  -v /path/to/documents:/data \
  ghcr.io/groupdocs-editor/editor-net-mcp:latest

• Get a free 30-day temporary license

• Purchase a license · Product page

Configuration

Native prerequisites

GroupDocs.Editor draws through Aspose.Drawing (managed) and SkiaSharp, whose native libraries ship inside the package — no libgdiplus is needed on any platform. Saving edited content to PDF or XPS lays text out, so Linux needs real fonts:

Limits

• replace_text matches within one formatting run. A phrase split across differently formatted text (half bold, half not) is not matched; use extract_html and save_from_html for such edits.

• PDF editing is a conversion. A PDF is turned into flowing HTML and back, so complex layouts do not round-trip perfectly. Save the edited result as DOCX if fidelity matters.

• PPTX and email outputs need an original. save_from_html creates DOCX, XLSX, PDF, TXT, Markdown and EPUB from HTML alone; for PPTX and EML/MSG pass the original as sourceFile.

• Remote resources. HTML or Office input that references remote images or stylesheets may cause the engine to fetch them while loading. Run the server without network egress if inputs are untrusted.

• macOS CI. Integration tests gate on Linux and Windows; the family-wide macOS runner hang is tracked separately.

Usage with Docker Compose

cd docker
docker compose up

Edit docker/docker-compose.yml to point the volume at your documents folder.

Documentation & guides

Step-by-step deployment guides and a published-package integration test suite live in the companion repo GroupDocs.Editor.Mcp.Tests:

• Install from NuGet — dnx, global tool, pinned vs always-latest

• Run via Docker

• Verify on the MCP registry

• Use with Claude Desktop

• Use with VS Code / GitHub Copilot

• Run the integration tests

• Use with Cursor

That repo exercises every advertised tool against the published package (dnx on Linux, Windows and macOS) and the Docker image, reading every edit back through the server.

License

MIT — see LICENSE