# Reported issues for Word MCP Live

Pod holds 13 of 13 problems reported by people outside the maintainer team. Issues filed by the project's own owners, members and collaborators are excluded entirely — a maintainer's release checklist is not a warning to a prospective user.

Back to [Word MCP Live](/mcp/word-mcp-live).

## Most discussed

### macOS: tracked changes ignore MCP_AUTHOR — revisions attributed to Word user name

**Environment:** macOS (Apple Silicon), Word for Mac 16.111.1, word-mcp-live via uvx (latest), MCP_AUTHOR set in server env.

**What happens:** Tracked edits made through the live tools on macOS (word_live_replace_text, word_live_format_text, etc. with track_changes=true) create revisions attributed to Word's configured user name, not the MCP_AUTHOR value.

**Expected:** Revisions authored as MCP_AUTHOR, matching Windows behavior.

**Root cause:** The COM path in `tools/live_tools.py` wraps trac

[Read the thread](https://github.com/ykarapazar/word-mcp-live/issues/21) · 2026-08-03 · open · external user · 1 comment

### [Bug] word_live_apply_list — level_map ignored, multilevel lists missing per-level indentation

**Tool name:** `word_live_apply_list`

## Describe the bug

Two issues hit while building a 3-level numbered list (arabic → lowercase_letter → lowercase_roman):

1. **`level_map` parameter is silently ignored.** A single multilevel call with `level_map` returns `success: true` but all paragraphs render flat at level 1 — `level_map` has no effect.
2. **Successive `apply_list` calls produce correct markers but no visual indentation.** The workaround for bug 1 (multiple calls with `continue_previou

[Read the thread](https://github.com/ykarapazar/word-mcp-live/issues/13) · 2026-05-08 · open · external user · 0 comments

### Word MCP MacOS Not Live Editing

- I am using [Kiro CLI](https://kiro.dev/) with the following config:

```
% cat ~/.kiro/settings/mcp.json
{
  "mcpServers" : {
    "word" : {
      "command" : "uvx",
      "args" : [ "--from", "word-mcp-live", "word_mcp_server" ],
      "env" : {
        "MCP_AUTHOR" : "Stan Brinkerhoff",
        "MCP_AUTHOR_INITIALS" : "SB"
      }
    },
```

- This starts up `word-mc-live` 1.6.2:

```
% uvx --from word-mcp-live -v word_mcp_server
DEBUG uv 0.9.13 (Homebrew 2025-11-26)
....
DEBUG Found fresh 

[Read the thread](https://github.com/ykarapazar/word-mcp-live/issues/12) · 2026-05-05 · open · external user · 2 comments

### word_screen_capture raises NameError: _MAC_AVAILABLE is not defined

## Summary

`word_screen_capture` fails on every call with `NameError: name '_MAC_AVAILABLE' is not defined`. The tool is unusable.

## Environment

- Windows 11 Pro 10.0.26200
- word-mcp-live @ upstream/main (6167f52)
- Client: Claude Code 2.1.51

## Steps to reproduce

1. Open any Word document.
2. Call `word_screen_capture` (via any MCP client or directly).

## Actual behavior

```
Error calling tool 'word_screen_capture': name '_MAC_AVAILABLE' is not defined
```

## Expected behavior

Return

[Read the thread](https://github.com/ykarapazar/word-mcp-live/issues/8) · 2026-04-17 · open · external user · 0 comments

### Bug: word_live_replace_text infinite loop when document has TrackRevisions enabled

## Bug Description

`word_live_replace_text` with `replace_all=True` causes an **infinite loop** that fills the document with endless duplicated replacement text when the document already has `TrackRevisions` enabled at the document level.

## Root Cause

The function correctly guards against `replace_all=True` + `track_changes=True` (the tool's own parameter) at line 802:

```python
if replace_all and track_changes:
    return json.dumps({"error": "replace_all=True with track_changes=True cause

[Read the thread](https://github.com/ykarapazar/word-mcp-live/issues/7) · 2026-04-07 · closed · external user · 1 comment

### [Bug] PyPI release (v1.2.0) is stale; word_live_replace_text infinite loop requires Git install

**Tool name**
word_live_replace_text

**Describe the bug**
The version currently available on PyPI (v1.2.0) does not contain the logic fixes present in the main branch. Specifically, when using the combination of track_changes: true and replace_all: true, the tool enters an infinite loop because it re-matches the newly inserted tracked changes.

While this is already fixed in the repository's source code, the current README directs users to install via uvx word-mcp-live, which pulls the bugged v

[Read the thread](https://github.com/ykarapazar/word-mcp-live/issues/6) · 2026-04-06 · closed · external user · 5 comments

### word_live_replace_text: ^s not converted to non-breaking space

## Bug Description

The `word_live_replace_text` tool converts Word special characters `^p`, `^t`, and `^m` in the `replace_text` parameter to their actual character equivalents (`\r`, `\t`, `\x0c`), but does **not** handle `^s` (non-breaking space / `\u00a0`).

This means that using `^s` in the replacement text inserts the **literal string** `^s` into the document instead of a non-breaking space character (U+00A0).

## Steps to Reproduce

1. Open a Word document containing text with ` ;` (norma

[Read the thread](https://github.com/ykarapazar/word-mcp-live/issues/4) · 2026-03-25 · closed · external user · 2 comments

### [Bug]

# `track_replace` stalls permanently after first parallel call on same document

## Environment

- Windows 11 Pro 10.0.26200
- word-mcp-live (latest)
- FastMCP >= 2.8.1
- Client: Claude Code 2.1.51 (but any MCP client dispatching parallel tool calls would trigger this)

## Summary

When multiple `track_replace` calls are dispatched **in parallel** on the same document, only the first call succeeds. All other calls in the batch fail silently or return errors. After this, the MCP server enters a p

[Read the thread](https://github.com/ykarapazar/word-mcp-live/issues/3) · 2026-03-13 · closed · external user · 2 comments

## Most recent

### macOS: tracked changes ignore MCP_AUTHOR — fix tested, plus an Office

sign-in gotcha that likely affects Windows too

**Environment:** macOS (Apple Silicon), Word for Mac 16.111.1, word-mcp-live
@ c6c7617 via uvx, MCP_AUTHOR set in server env.

**Problem:** Tracked edits via the live tools on macOS attribute revisions to
Word's user, not MCP_AUTHOR. The COM path wraps tracked edits in an author
swap (app.UserName) in `tools/live_tools.py`; the JXA path in
`core/word_mac.py` sets trackRevisions but never swaps the author.

**Fix — tested and working in production:*

[Read the thread](https://github.com/ykarapazar/word-mcp-live/issues/23) · 2026-08-03 · open · external user · 0 comments

### macOS: word_live_insert_paragraphs not implemented

**Environment:** same as #<issue 1 number>.

Calling word_live_insert_paragraphs on macOS returns
`{"error": "word_live_insert_paragraphs is not yet implemented on macOS"}`.

Workaround that works well meanwhile: word_live_replace_text with `^p` in the
replacement text — Word's replace engine interprets it as a paragraph mark on
both platforms, including with track_changes=true. Noting it here in case
that's useful to others until the port lands; mac_insert_text already exists,
so presumably it'

[Read the thread](https://github.com/ykarapazar/word-mcp-live/issues/22) · 2026-08-03 · open · external user · 0 comments

### search_and_replace fails when search text spans across multiple runs

## Problem

The search_and_replace tool fails to find and replace text that contains special characters like brackets [], Chinese punctuation, or any text that spans across multiple Word document runs.

## Root Cause

After analyzing the source code in word_document_server/utils/document_utils.py, I found that find_and_replace_text checks each run individually:

`python
for run in para.runs:
    if old_text in run.text:  # Problem here
        run.text = run.text.replace(old_text, new_text)
`

W

[Read the thread](https://github.com/ykarapazar/word-mcp-live/issues/17) · 2026-06-19 · open · external user · 0 comments

### track_replace hangs (infinite loop, 100% CPU) when new_text contains old_text as a substring

## Summary

`track_replace` (`track_replace_in_doc` in `word_document_server/core/tracked_changes.py`) enters an infinite loop and pins a CPU core at ~100% whenever `new_text` contains `old_text` as a contiguous substring. The process must be killed manually.

## Version

word-mcp-live 1.6.20 (latest on PyPI as of 2026-06-17). Confirmed present on `main`.

## Root cause

Each paragraph is re-scanned in a `while True` loop until `old_text` is no longer found:

```python
for p in _get_paragraphs(r

[Read the thread](https://github.com/ykarapazar/word-mcp-live/issues/16) · 2026-06-17 · open · external user · 0 comments

### Startup Banner should say what project it is.

When I start the `word-mcp-live`, I get a generic `FastMCP` banner but no idea what version of `word-mcp-live` I am running:

```
% uvx --from word-mcp-live word_mcp_server
Loading configuration from .env file...
Transport: stdio
Starting Word Document MCP Server with stdio transport...
Server running on stdio transport

                             ╭──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
                             │                                    

[Read the thread](https://github.com/ykarapazar/word-mcp-live/issues/11) · 2026-05-05 · open · external user · 0 comments

The remaining reports are on [the project's issue tracker](https://github.com/ykarapazar/word-mcp-live/issues).