# MCP Server for PowerPoint

**Category:** 🧠 Knowledge & Memory  
**Repository:** https://github.com/sbroenne/mcp-server-powerpoint  
**Views:** 0  
**Installs:** 0  
**Upvotes:** 0  
**Directory Page:** https://allmcps.com/mcp/mcp-server-for-powerpoint

## Description
PowerPoint automation for AI: slides, shapes, tables, charts, images, notes. Windows only.

## Claude Desktop Quick Installation
Heuristic fallback — verify the package name and runner against the repository README before running it. Uses `npx` (confidence: low):

```json
"mcpServers": {
  "mcp-server-for-powerpoint": {
    "command": "npx",
    "args": ["-y","mcp-server-for-powerpoint"]
  }
}
```

## Documentation & README

# PowerPointMcp — MCP Server & CLI for Microsoft PowerPoint

[![VS Code Marketplace](https://vsmarketplacebadges.dev/installs-short/sbroenne.powerpoint-mcp.svg?label=VS%20Code%20Installs)](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=sbroenne.powerpoint-mcp)
[![Downloads](https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/sbroenne/mcp-server-powerpoint/total?label=GitHub%20Downloads)](https://github.com/sbroenne/mcp-server-powerpoint/releases)

[![CI Gate](https://github.com/sbroenne/mcp-server-powerpoint/actions/workflows/ci.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/sbroenne/mcp-server-powerpoint/actions/workflows/ci.yml)
[![Release](https://img.shields.io/github/v/release/sbroenne/mcp-server-powerpoint)](https://github.com/sbroenne/mcp-server-powerpoint/releases/latest)

[![License: MIT](https://img.shields.io/badge/License-MIT-yellow.svg)](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
[![.NET](https://img.shields.io/badge/.NET-10-blue.svg)](https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet/10.0)
[![Platform](https://img.shields.io/badge/platform-Windows-lightgrey.svg)](https://github.com/sbroenne/mcp-server-powerpoint)
[![Built with Copilot](https://img.shields.io/badge/Built%20with-GitHub%20Copilot-0366d6.svg)](https://copilot.github.com/)

**Automate PowerPoint with AI** — a [Model Context Protocol](https://modelcontextprotocol.io) server and CLI
for live, real-time PowerPoint automation through conversational AI. Sibling project to
[mcp-server-excel](https://github.com/sbroenne/mcp-server-excel), following the same layered
architecture: `ComInterop` → `Core` → `CLI` / `MCP Server`.

**MCP Server for PowerPoint** enables AI assistants (GitHub Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT) to build and
edit real `.pptx` presentations through natural language — slides, shapes, text, tables, charts,
speaker notes, and layouts — no VBA or PowerPoint object-model knowledge required.

**🛡️ Live COM automation, not file parsing** — Most PowerPoint MCP servers manipulate `.pptx`
files offline with libraries like `python-pptx`, or use agent-run scripts with LibreOffice-rendered
thumbnails. This project instead drives a **live, real PowerPoint desktop instance** via
`Microsoft.Office.Interop.PowerPoint` — the official Primary Interop Assembly. That means
true-fidelity rendering, compatibility with an already-open deck, and zero risk of producing a
`.pptx` that PowerPoint itself can't open, because PowerPoint is the one writing it.

**🖼️ Export-to-verify** — the core differentiator. After any visual edit, export the slide (or the
whole deck) to an image with `export(action="export-slide-to-image", ...)` /
`export(action="export-all-slides-to-images", ...)` and let a
vision-capable AI assistant *see* the result — catching overlapping shapes, text overflow, and
layout regressions that text-only automation simply cannot detect.

**Technical Requirements:**
- ⚠️ **Windows Only** — COM interop is Windows-specific
- ⚠️ **PowerPoint Required** — Microsoft PowerPoint 2016 or later must be installed
- ⚠️ **Desktop Environment** — controls a real PowerPoint process (not for server-side processing)

> [!TIP]
> **Also automating spreadsheets?** Check out [Excel MCP Server](https://excelmcpserver.dev/) —
> the sister project, built the same way.

## 🎯 What You Can Do

**16 MCP tools with 186 operations across 16 domains:**

- 🗂️ **Presentation** (20 ops) — create, open, Save As, Save Copy As, close, list sessions, apply a
  `.potx`/`.pptx` template's masters/theme/layouts, read the current theme name, set/read
  PowerPoint's advisory Mark as Final flag, read/write built-in and custom document properties,
  and manage string tags
- 📑 **Slide** (23 ops) — lifecycle, backgrounds, sections, comments, slide import, and string tags
- ▭ **Shape** (47 ops) — shapes, styling, grouping, hyperlinks, linked assets, placeholder editing,
  and string tags
- ✏️ **TextFrame** (20 ops) — text, font size/name/color, bold, italic, underline, alignment, bullets
- 📊 **Table** (12 ops) — add, cell text, insert/delete rows & columns, cell fill/border, merge cells
- 🗣️ **Notes** (2 ops) — set/get speaker notes
- 🖼️ **Layout** (4 ops) — set/get slide layout
- 📐 **Page Setup** (5 ops) — slide size, first slide number, footer, date/time, slide numbers
- ♿ **Accessibility** (3 ops) — deterministic audit and reading-order management
- 🎭 **Master** (10 ops) — slide master title/body placeholder fonts, background color
- 🎬 **Animation** (5 ops) — shape entrance/emphasis/exit effects, slide transitions
- 🖼️ **Image** (7 ops) — insert embedded or linked pictures and adjust brightness, contrast,
  recolor, and crop
- 📈 **Chart** (16 ops) — add chart, multi-series data, titles, legend, built-in styles, color styles,
  and data tables
- 🎧 **Media** (2 ops) — insert embedded or linked audio/video and inspect native media metadata
- 🔀 **SmartArt** (7 ops) — insert and edit SmartArt diagrams
- 🖼️ **Export** (3 ops) — export to PDF or images for delivery and visual verification

Every domain is exposed as a single **action-dispatch tool** (e.g. `shape`, `table`, `chart`,
`presentation`) with an `action` parameter selecting the specific operation — keeping the tool
list small for AI assistants while still exposing every operation.

📚 **[Complete Feature Reference →](https://powerpointmcpserver.dev/features/)** — detailed
documentation of every tool and operation

## 💬 Example Prompts

**Build a deck from scratch:**
- *"Create a new presentation with a title slide and three content slides about our Q3 results,
  then export it as images so I can see it."*

**Tables & charts:**
- *"Add a 4x3 table summarizing this data, then add a bar chart next to it."*

**Formatting & shapes:**
- *"Make the title bold and blue, and move the logo to the top-right corner."*

**Speaker notes:**
- *"Write speaker notes for each slide summarizing the key talking point."*

**Templates & themes:**
- *"Apply our corporate template to this deck without losing any of the slide content."*

**Visual verification:**
- *"Export slide 3 as an image and tell me if the chart overlaps the text box."*

## 👥 Who Should Use This?

**Perfect for:**
- ✅ AI assistants and coding agents that need to build or edit `.pptx` decks
- ✅ Anyone automating repetitive slide-deck workflows (reports, status decks, templates)
- ✅ Teams that want export-to-verify visual checks on every automated edit

**Not suitable for:**
- ❌ Server-side/headless processing (this drives a real desktop PowerPoint process)
- ❌ Linux/macOS users (Windows + PowerPoint installation required)

## 🚀 Quick Start

| Platform | Installation |
|----------|-------------|
| **VS Code** | [Install Extension](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=sbroenne.powerpoint-mcp) (one-click, recommended) |
| **Claude Desktop** | Download `.mcpb` from [latest release](https://github.com/sbroenne/mcp-server-powerpoint/releases/latest) |
| **Any MCP Client** | Download `mcp-powerpoint.exe` from [latest release](https://github.com/sbroenne/mcp-server-powerpoint/releases/latest) and add to PATH |
| **Details** | 📖 [Full Installation Guide →](https://powerpointmcpserver.dev/installation/) |

**⚠️ Important:** Close any open instances of the target file before automating it — the server
needs exclusive access to the presentation while it's driving PowerPoint.

## 🔧 CLI vs MCP Server

This project provides both a **CLI** and an **MCP Server** interface. Choose based on your use case:

| Interface | Best For | Why |
|-----------|----------|-----|
| **CLI** (`pptcli` / `powerpointcli.exe`) | Coding agents (Copilot, Cursor, Windsurf) + scripting | Single tool, no large schemas — better for cost-sensitive, high-throughput automation. |
| **MCP Server** (`mcp-powerpoint`) | Conversational AI (Claude Desktop, VS Code Chat) | Rich tool discovery, persistent session. Better for interactive, exploratory workflows. |

**Manual installation:**
```powershell
# Primary: Download standalone executables from latest release (no .NET runtime required)
# https://github.com/sbroenne/mcp-server-powerpoint/releases/latest
# - PowerPointMcp-MCP-Server-{version}-windows.zip → extract mcp-powerpoint.exe
# - PowerPointMcp-CLI-{version}-windows.zip → extract powerpointcli.exe

# Secondary: Install via .NET tool (requires .NET 10 runtime)
dotnet tool install --global Sbroenne.PowerPointMcp.McpServer
dotnet tool install --global Sbroenne.PowerPointMcp.CLI

# After installing either way, auto-configure your coding agents:
npx add-mcp "mcp-powerpoint" --name powerpoint-mcp
```

```powershell
# Optional: Install the agent skill for better AI guidance
npx skills add sbroenne/mcp-server-powerpoint --skill powerpoint-mcp
```

> 💡 The VS Code extension installs this skill automatically. Manual `npx skills add` is for other
> MCP clients (Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.).

## ⚙️ How It Works - COM Automation & Unified Service Architecture

**PowerPointMcp uses Windows COM automation to control the actual PowerPoint application (not
just `.pptx` files).**

The **MCP Server** and **CLI** are two equal, first-class entry points. Each hosts its own
**PowerPointMcp Service** that manages presentation sessions — the MCP Server runs it
**in-process** (direct calls, no pipe), while the CLI uses a **background daemon** over a named
pipe so sessions persist across CLI invocations:

```
┌──────────────────────┐        ┌──────────────────────┐
│  MCP Server          │        │  CLI (pptcli)        │
│  (AI assistants)     │        │  (coding agents)     │
└──────────┬───────────┘        └──────────┬───────────┘
           │ in-process                     │ named pipe →
           │ (direct calls)                 │ background daemon
           ▼                                ▼
┌──────────────────────┐        ┌──────────────────────┐
│  PowerPointMcp       │        │  PowerPointMcp       │
│  Service             │        │  Service             │
│  (session mgmt)      │        │  (daemon; sessions   │
│                      │        │   persist across     │
│                      │        │   CLI invocations)   │
└──────────┬───────────┘        └──────────┬───────────┘
           ▼                                ▼
      Core Commands                    Core Commands
           ▼                                ▼
┌──────────────────────┐        ┌──────────────────────┐
│  PowerPoint COM API  │        │  PowerPoint COM API  │
│  (PowerPoint.        │        │  (PowerPoint.        │
│   Application)       │        │   Application)       │
└──────────────────────┘        └──────────────────────┘
```

Both entry points share the same Core Commands codebase, so every operation behaves identically.
They are separate processes, though: each runs its own PowerPointMcp Service and its own
PowerPoint instance, and they do **not** share live sessions with each other.

**Key Benefits:**
- ✅ **Two equal entry points** — every operation works identically through the MCP Server and
  the CLI
- ✅ **Persistent CLI sessions** — the CLI daemon keeps presentations open across multiple
  `pptcli` calls, so scripts don't re-open files each time
- ✅ **In-process MCP calls** — the MCP Server runs the service in-process (no pipe) for
  low-latency automation
- ✅ **Real PowerPoint automation** — drives the actual `PowerPoint.Application` via COM, not just
  file parsing
- ✅ **Export-to-verify** — close the loop on every visual change with a real rendered image

## ⭐ GitHub Star History

[![GitHub stars over time for PowerPointMcp](https://powerpointmcpserver.dev/assets/images/star-history.svg)](https://github.com/sbroenne/mcp-server-powerpoint/stargazers)

Bootstrapped from exact authenticated stargazer timestamps, then updated daily from
GitHub's exact public star count. Only date/count aggregates are retained.

## 📋 Additional Information

📚 **[MCP Server Guide →](https://github.com/sbroenne/mcp-server-powerpoint/blob/HEAD/src/PowerPointMcp.McpServer/README.md)** | **[CLI Guide →](https://github.com/sbroenne/mcp-server-powerpoint/blob/HEAD/src/PowerPointMcp.CLI/README.md)** | **[Agent Skills →](https://github.com/sbroenne/mcp-server-powerpoint/blob/HEAD/skills/README.md)**

📖 **[Complete Feature Reference](https://powerpointmcpserver.dev/features/)** •
**[Installation Guide](https://powerpointmcpserver.dev/installation/)** •
**[Changelog](https://powerpointmcpserver.dev/changelog/)** •
**[Native Feature Roadmap](https://github.com/sbroenne/mcp-server-powerpoint/blob/HEAD/docs/POWERPOINT-NATIVE-FEATURE-AUDIT.md)** •
**[Contributing](https://powerpointmcpserver.dev/contributing/)** •
**[Security](https://powerpointmcpserver.dev/security/)** •
**[Privacy](https://powerpointmcpserver.dev/privacy/)**

**License:** MIT License — see [LICENSE](https://github.com/sbroenne/mcp-server-powerpoint/blob/HEAD/LICENSE)

**Built With:** This entire project was developed using GitHub Copilot AI assistance.

**Acknowledgments:**
- Microsoft PowerPoint Team — for comprehensive COM automation APIs
- Model Context Protocol community — for the AI integration standard
- [mcp-server-excel](https://github.com/sbroenne/mcp-server-excel) — the sibling project this
  architecture and tooling is ported from

## Related Projects

Other projects by the author:

- [Excel MCP Server](https://excelmcpserver.dev/) — AI-powered Excel automation via Power Query,
  DAX, VBA, and PivotTables
- [Windows MCP Server](https://windowsmcpserver.dev/) — AI-powered Windows automation via MCP
- [OBS Studio MCP Server](https://github.com/sbroenne/mcp-server-obs) — AI-powered OBS Studio
  automation
- [pytest-skill-engineering](https://github.com/sbroenne/pytest-skill-engineering) — LLM-powered
  testing framework for AI agents