docx-extractor-mcp

Model Context Protocol server that wraps the docx-extractor Rust CLI. Lets Claude Desktop (or any MCP-aware client) read .docx files and return structured JSON — paragraphs, headings, lists, tables, footnotes, comments, tracked changes, and base64-encoded images — without Microsoft Office.

On first call the server downloads the matching docx-extractor binary from GitHub Releases into ~/.cache/docx-extractor-mcp/<version>/, verifies its SHA-256, and caches it for subsequent runs.

Working with files uploaded into Claude Desktop? The MCP server runs on the host machine and cannot see files inside Claude Desktop's analysis sandbox (/mnt/user-data/uploads/...). For that case, install the Python wrapper directly inside the sandbox instead: pip install docx-extractor-cli — it bundles the same binary and works on the sandbox upload path. See the Python package README.

Install in Claude Desktop

Add this to your claude_desktop_config.json (Settings → Developer → Edit Config):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "docx-extractor": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "docx-extractor-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop. The extract_docx tool will be available — drop a .docx file into a chat and ask Claude to read it.

Install in Claude Code

claude mcp add docx-extractor -- npx -y docx-extractor-mcp

Tool surface

extract_docx

Extract structured JSON from a .docx file.

| Argument | Type | Required | Description | |---|---|---|---| | path | string | yes | Absolute path to the .docx file. | | pretty | boolean | no | Pretty-print the JSON output. | | outputPath | string | no | If set, write JSON to this absolute path and return a short summary instead of the full document. Use this for large docs to keep them out of the conversation. | | includeImages | boolean | no | Include base64-encoded image bytes in the response (default: true). Set false to skip the top-level images array; per-section image references are still preserved. | | maxImageBytes | integer | no | Per-image size cap in bytes (default: 10485760 / 10 MB). Larger images are skipped with a warning. |

Returns the JSON document as text (or, when outputPath is set, a one-line summary). See the main project README for the full schema.

Verification & offline mode

On first call the installer downloads SHA256SUMS.txt from the release and verifies the binary against it. If the checksum file is unreachable (offline, mirror, private fork), set DOCX_EXTRACTOR_MCP_SKIP_CHECKSUM=1 in the MCP server's environment to bypass verification — only use this when you trust the upstream.

Supported platforms

Prebuilt binaries are published for:

• Linux x86-64
• macOS x86-64 (Intel)
• macOS aarch64 (Apple Silicon)
• Windows x86-64

Other targets (Linux aarch64, Windows aarch64, etc.) need to be built from source — clone the main repo and cargo build --release.

Versioning

The npm package version mirrors the Rust binary version. Installing [email protected] always downloads the v0.2.2 Rust binary — no surprise upgrades.

License

MIT — see the main repo.