The first and best command-line tool purpose-built for AI agents to read, edit, and automate Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Free, open-source, single binary, no Office installation required.
Why OfficeCLI?
What used to take 50 lines of Python and 3 separate libraries:
from pptx import Presentation from pptx.util import Inches, Pt prs = Presentation() slide = prs.slides.add_slide(prs.slide_layouts[0]) title = slide.shapes.title title.text = "Q4 Report" # ... 45 more lines ... prs.save('deck.pptx')
Now takes one command:
officecli add deck.pptx / --type slide --prop title="Q4 Report"
What OfficeCLI can do:
- Create documents from scratch -- blank or with content
- Read text, structure, styles, formulas -- in plain text or structured JSON
- Analyze formatting issues, style inconsistencies, and structural problems
- Modify any element -- text, fonts, colors, layout, formulas, charts, images
- Reorganize content -- add, remove, move, copy elements across documents
| Format | Read | Modify | Create |
| ------------------ | ---- | ------ | ------ |
| Word (.docx) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Excel (.xlsx) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| PowerPoint (.pptx) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Word — paragraphs, runs, tables, styles, headers/footers, images, equations, comments, footnotes, watermarks, bookmarks, TOC, charts, hyperlinks, sections, form fields, content controls (SDT), fields, document properties
Excel — cells, formulas (150+ built-in functions with auto-evaluation), sheets, tables, conditional formatting, charts, pivot tables, named ranges, data validation, images, sparklines, comments, autofilter, shapes, CSV/TSV import, $Sheet:A1 cell addressing
PowerPoint — slides, shapes, images, tables, charts, animations, morph transitions, 3D models (.glb), slide zoom, equations, themes, connectors, video/audio, groups, notes, placeholders
Use Cases
For Developers:
- Automate report generation from databases or APIs
- Batch-process documents (bulk find/replace, style updates)
- Build document pipelines in CI/CD environments (generate docs from test results)
- Headless Office automation in Docker/containerized environments
For AI Agents:
- Generate presentations from user prompts (see examples above)
- Extract structured data from documents to JSON
- Validate and check document quality before delivery
For Teams:
- Clone document templates and populate with data
- Automated document validation in CI/CD pipelines
