Excel MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that reads and writes MS Excel data.

Why Fork?

This fork (pcvelz/excel-mcp-server) adds features needed for real-world bookkeeping workflows that are not yet available upstream:

• Alignment support in excel_format_range — set horizontal/vertical alignment (e.g., left-align numbers)
• Alignment in showStyle output — read back cell alignment when using showStyle: true
• Cell type attributes — type attribute (string, number, formula, date) in showStyle output
• Raw value attributes — raw attribute showing unformatted values alongside displayed values
• ISO date auto-conversion — write ISO date strings (e.g., "2026-02-03") and they're automatically converted to Excel date serial numbers

See the upstream comparison for full diff.

Features

• Read/Write text values
• Read/Write formulas
• Create new sheets

🪟Windows only:

• Live editing
• Capture screen image from a sheet

For more details, see the tools section.

Requirements

• Node.js 20.x or later

Supported file formats

• xlsx (Excel book)
• xlsm (Excel macro-enabled book)
• xltx (Excel template)
• xltm (Excel macro-enabled template)

Installation

Installing via NPM

excel-mcp-server is automatically installed by adding the following configuration to the MCP servers configuration.

For Windows:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "excel": {
            "command": "cmd",
            "args": ["/c", "npx", "--yes", "@negokaz/excel-mcp-server"],
            "env": {
                "EXCEL_MCP_PAGING_CELLS_LIMIT": "4000"
            }
        }
    }
}

For other platforms:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "excel": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": ["--yes", "@negokaz/excel-mcp-server"],
            "env": {
                "EXCEL_MCP_PAGING_CELLS_LIMIT": "4000"
            }
        }
    }
}

Installing via Smithery

To install Excel MCP Server for Claude Desktop automatically via Smithery:

npx -y @smithery/cli install @negokaz/excel-mcp-server --client claude

excel_describe_sheets

List all sheet information of specified Excel file.

Arguments:

• fileAbsolutePath
  • Absolute path to the Excel file

excel_read_sheet

Read values from Excel sheet with pagination.

Arguments:

• fileAbsolutePath
  • Absolute path to the Excel file
• sheetName
  • Sheet name in the Excel file
• range
  • Range of cells to read in the Excel sheet (e.g., "A1:C10"). [default: first paging range]
• showFormula
  • Show formula instead of value [default: false]
• showStyle
  • Show style information for cells [default: false]
  • When enabled, output includes:
    • style-ref: References to style definitions (border, font, fill, alignment, numFmt)
    • type: Cell type (number, string, date, bool, formula, error)
    • raw: Raw/unformatted value (shown when different from displayed value, e.g., raw="45691" for a date displayed as "3-Feb")

excel_screen_capture

[Windows only] Take a screenshot of the Excel sheet with pagination.

Arguments:

• fileAbsolutePath
  • Absolute path to the Excel file
• sheetName
  • Sheet name in the Excel file
• range
  • Range of cells to read in the Excel sheet (e.g., "A1:C10"). [default: first paging range]

excel_write_to_sheet

Write values to the Excel sheet.

Arguments:

• fileAbsolutePath
  • Absolute path to the Excel file
• sheetName
  • Sheet name in the Excel file
• newSheet
  • Create a new sheet if true, otherwise write to the existing sheet
• range
  • Range of cells to read in the Excel sheet (e.g., "A1:C10").
• values
  • Values to write to the Excel sheet. If the value is a formula, it should start with "="
  • ISO date strings (e.g., "2026-02-03", "2026-02-03T10:30:00", "2026-02-03T10:30:00Z") are automatically converted to Excel date serial numbers

excel_create_table

Create a table in the Excel sheet

Arguments:

• fileAbsolutePath
  • Absolute path to the Excel file
• sheetName
  • Sheet name where the table is created
• range
  • Range to be a table (e.g., "A1:C10")
• tableName
  • Table name to be created

excel_copy_sheet

Copy existing sheet to a new sheet

Arguments:

• fileAbsolutePath
  • Absolute path to the Excel file
• srcSheetName
  • Source sheet name in the Excel file
• dstSheetName
  • Sheet name to be copied

excel_format_range

Format cells in the Excel sheet with style information

Arguments:

• fileAbsolutePath
  • Absolute path to the Excel file
• sheetName
  • Sheet name in the Excel file
• range
  • Range of cells in the Excel sheet (e.g., "A1:C3")
• styles
  • 2D array of style objects for each cell. If a cell does not change style, use null. The number of items of the array must match the range size.
  • Style object properties:
    • border: Array of border styles (type, color, style)
    • font: Font styling (bold, italic, underline, size, strike, color, vertAlign)
    • fill: Fill/background styling (type, pattern, color, shading)
    • alignment: Cell alignment settings
      • horizontal: Horizontal alignment (left, center, right, fill, justify, centerContinuous, distributed)
      • vertical: Vertical alignment (top, center, bottom, justify, distributed)
      • wrapText: Wrap text in cell (boolean)
      • shrinkToFit: Shrink text to fit cell width (boolean)
      • textRotation: Text rotation angle (0-180, or 255 for vertical)
      • indent: Indent level (0-250)
    • numFmt: Custom number format string
    • decimalPlaces: Number of decimal places (0-30)

You can change the MCP Server behaviors by the following environment variables:

EXCEL_MCP_PAGING_CELLS_LIMIT

The maximum number of cells to read in a single paging operation.
[default: 4000]

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Kazuki Negoro

excel-mcp-server is released under the MIT License