Most Excel connectors read cells; this one builds charts and pivot tables and exports a formatted PDF, because there is a full document library underneath. The transport is the thing to plan for — it runs as a service on a port, so a stdio-only client needs a bridge in front of it.
An MCP server built on Spire.XLS for Python that gives an agent real Excel manipulation. It is independent of Microsoft Office, so it runs on a server with no Excel installed, and the conversions keep formatting fidelity rather than approximating it.
- Workbook and worksheet basics — create, read, write and delete worksheets or whole workbooks
- Worksheet control: rename, move, hide, freeze panes
- Cell-level data work — read and write ranges, apply formulas, sort and filter
- Formatting — styles, merged cells, fonts and colors, conditional formatting
- Charts of several types, and pivot tables to summarize and explore the data
- Conversion out of Excel to PDF, HTML, CSV, image and XML
No account and no key. Python 3.10 or higher and uv. Clone the repository and `uv pip install -e .`, then start it with `uv run spire-xls-mcp-server`. It speaks SSE, so the client config points at a URL — `http://localhost:8000/sse` by default — rather than launching a command; `FASTMCP_PORT` changes the port and `EXCEL_FILES_PATH` sets the working directory for files, defaulting to `./excel_files`. Claude Desktop needs stdio, so it requires a bridge such as Supergateway. Package `spire-xls-mcp-server` at 0.1.1, MIT.