Multiple agents could write to the doc locally, but for the moment it’s not predominantly could based (only short links). I think I will build a cloud first version/offering/config soon
Thanks, please could you email me at hi@smalldocs.org. I’m trying to learn how to make this a better experience for teams, so would love to work with you guys to optimise the experience.
This looks neat, but I don't see any examples of the format on the webpage (And no, I am not going to install Node.js just to see examples of the format).
I looked at the format. I think you're mostly on the right track, but I also think that a better candidate might be to simply use (and augment, where necessary, such as for styles) the org mode format: It can do all the stuff you have, but also things like checkboxes, calendars, and more.
As a bonus, both people and agents already know the format so there is no need to have a skills file. For example, the following prompt on Gemini WebChat (hardly a good model):
Give me an org mode file to show a PERT (Project evaluation and Review Technique) diagram, with a calendar below the diagram allowing me to see the current year. Create a hierarchy of tasks that have to be done using checkboxes and collapsible sections to mark tasks/subtasks as done. Below that, give me a table of all the terminal tasks that need to be completed with task/subtask name, starting date, estimated ending date and the resource assigned to it.
Finally, at the end, produce a gantt chart as a mermaid diagram for the sample project.
Produced a working file with tables[1], diagrams, calendar, checkboxes in a single file that Emacs rendered properly. Org mode can export to every format I ever needed (LaTeX, html, pdf). I once even had the resulting HTML conversion contain animations written in Javascript :-)
Maybe all you need to code for agents to write is a web-based viewer for Org Mode syntax?
Look at it this way: right now if I wanted what smalldocs does (i.e. ask the agent to generate any of your examples), I can ask the agent "do $FOO, generate org mode", and without a single additional skill/claude.md/agents.md file, get exactly the result you got from smalldocs.
I think maybe testdrive Emacs daily for a month; it would open your mind to the possibilities available[2]. If anything more is needed (like I wanted to put in JS in the HTML output), it can do it. If Emacs cannot do it, my agent can write an EmacsLisp function that will do it.
At the end of the day, when even a poor LLM can do what smalldocs does but without any additional .md files or context, I think maybe your solution might be over-engineered.
----------
[1] Org mode tables work exactly like spreadsheets, in that they can contain formulas.
[2] Think of it this way - when I needed multimodal documents, because I already knew Emacs, I just used that. When you needed multimodal documents, you vibed a whole new product into existence.
I have been thinking about the problem of collaborating with AI in spreadsheets a bit. I think I want a few things solved:
- Revision control with attribution so I can double check LLMs edits
- Online collaboration with other humans and LLMs
- Schema and validation of column and row data
- Excel and Gdocs interoperability
One path I think you could go to accomplish this would be DuckDB which creates a programming interface that LLMs could use and interoperability with Excel and Google Docs via plugins.
Not sure if it is better to create from scratch rebuilds of the spreadsheet UX or rely on existing spreadsheet apps for that.
All that being said for any work I do I think I would want my data an LLM is operating on to be more structured and constrained than a text file or even a spreadsheet without cell validation.
AI has zero need to see the renders (you are just wasting tokens) and that is why I built the Go version - I patched a lot of the PPTX code in my MCP server, as it happens.
while i appreciate that you are working on something to give away for free, providing your own little world of value... your comment makes it sound like you've never made powerpoints before. of course, there are a bajillion powerpoints out there in the wild that layer white rectangles to erase stuff from screenshots of charts, among numerous other atrocities
> OfficeCLI is the first and best Office suite purpose-built for AI agents to read, edit, and automate Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Free, open-source, single binary, no Office installation required.
1. Calling Microsoft Office simply "Office" without qualification treats it like a trademark, rather than a generic term that was in use for this class of product before MS appropriated it.
2. If you're going to treat it like a trademark, don't violate it in the same sentence.
If you don't need interactive/animated features, I can absolutely recommend to have the agent build slides in HTML and convert it to PDF. Has been a game changer for me.
I’m having trouble having it take reference PowerPoint slides and converting them to html, chart and labels misplaced, the charts don’t look drawn properly, etc. how did you solve this?
Feel like overnight I suddenly started seeing so much stuff and comments on here concerning generating Office documents with the LLMs. What could be driving this? Doesn't latex or similar seem like a better fit here?
I went in the opposite direction and built https://smalldocs.org/, which is an office suite AI agents (and humans - including SWEs!) like to use.
I say it’s as if “Claude Code & Microsoft Office had a baby...”
Code available: https://github.com/espressoplease/smalldocs
Discord: https://discord.gg/txjATTsDaq
Sample document: https://smalldocs.org/blogs/what-is-a-smalldoc
Invoked via Claude Code by saying stuff like: “sdoc me the plan for this feature”, or “dig into our logs and sdoc me a report on our latency”
I built some scripts to do something similar but all local. It also live updates the document so you can see changes come through. Super useful
This is really neat! I have been thinking about similar problems.
Is there a way to collaborate with multiple agents or people on the same doc? It is unclear to me.
Multiple agents could write to the doc locally, but for the moment it’s not predominantly could based (only short links). I think I will build a cloud first version/offering/config soon
Great job on this. I can see this being extremely useful for my teams!
Thanks, please could you email me at hi@smalldocs.org. I’m trying to learn how to make this a better experience for teams, so would love to work with you guys to optimise the experience.
This looks neat, but I don't see any examples of the format on the webpage (And no, I am not going to install Node.js just to see examples of the format).
Does this link not work? https://smalldocs.org/blogs/what-is-a-smalldoc
If you’re talking about the README, you are right, but I think the homepage has a lot of examples you can click: https://smalldocs.org/#learn
I don't see a description of the format in that.
What does a human write to (for example) create the diagram mentioned in "A diagram, drawn from a description rather than dragged into place."?
To me this looks like AI-writes-everything and human-reads-everything.
It is mostly that pattern yes, but you can see the underlying formats in https://smalldocs.org/docs
Right, thanks.
I looked at the format. I think you're mostly on the right track, but I also think that a better candidate might be to simply use (and augment, where necessary, such as for styles) the org mode format: It can do all the stuff you have, but also things like checkboxes, calendars, and more.
As a bonus, both people and agents already know the format so there is no need to have a skills file. For example, the following prompt on Gemini WebChat (hardly a good model):
Produced a working file with tables[1], diagrams, calendar, checkboxes in a single file that Emacs rendered properly. Org mode can export to every format I ever needed (LaTeX, html, pdf). I once even had the resulting HTML conversion contain animations written in Javascript :-)Maybe all you need to code for agents to write is a web-based viewer for Org Mode syntax?
Look at it this way: right now if I wanted what smalldocs does (i.e. ask the agent to generate any of your examples), I can ask the agent "do $FOO, generate org mode", and without a single additional skill/claude.md/agents.md file, get exactly the result you got from smalldocs.
I think maybe testdrive Emacs daily for a month; it would open your mind to the possibilities available[2]. If anything more is needed (like I wanted to put in JS in the HTML output), it can do it. If Emacs cannot do it, my agent can write an EmacsLisp function that will do it.
At the end of the day, when even a poor LLM can do what smalldocs does but without any additional .md files or context, I think maybe your solution might be over-engineered.
----------
[1] Org mode tables work exactly like spreadsheets, in that they can contain formulas.
[2] Think of it this way - when I needed multimodal documents, because I already knew Emacs, I just used that. When you needed multimodal documents, you vibed a whole new product into existence.
I have been thinking about the problem of collaborating with AI in spreadsheets a bit. I think I want a few things solved:
- Revision control with attribution so I can double check LLMs edits
- Online collaboration with other humans and LLMs
- Schema and validation of column and row data
- Excel and Gdocs interoperability
One path I think you could go to accomplish this would be DuckDB which creates a programming interface that LLMs could use and interoperability with Excel and Google Docs via plugins.
Not sure if it is better to create from scratch rebuilds of the spreadsheet UX or rely on existing spreadsheet apps for that.
All that being said for any work I do I think I would want my data an LLM is operating on to be more structured and constrained than a text file or even a spreadsheet without cell validation.
Neat! I think agents making Word docs and PowerPoints is going to go away. I think something like small docs is the future.
Thanks very much! That is exactly my view too.
It’s also nice to get out of the command line for doing deep reading.
I have had a few developers try it, and some small number of them use it week after week (as do I): https://smalldocs.org/analytics
Nice, but I don't see a lot of ECMA 376 test cases. Both https://github.com/rcarmo/python-office-mcp-server and https://github.com/rcarmo/go-ooxml are ECMA 376 compliant (I made sure), because for headless generation and handling that's kind of important :)
Oh, and you're not the first, I started this a year ago. :)
Your tools don't render the file though and python-pptx hasn't been updated in 2 years.
AI has zero need to see the renders (you are just wasting tokens) and that is why I built the Go version - I patched a lot of the PPTX code in my MCP server, as it happens.
while i appreciate that you are working on something to give away for free, providing your own little world of value... your comment makes it sound like you've never made powerpoints before. of course, there are a bajillion powerpoints out there in the wild that layer white rectangles to erase stuff from screenshots of charts, among numerous other atrocities
It's an open source project. Maybe he'll accept PRs?
How does this do for processing formulas or macros in excel?
> OfficeCLI is the first and best Office suite purpose-built for AI agents to read, edit, and automate Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Free, open-source, single binary, no Office installation required.
1. Calling Microsoft Office simply "Office" without qualification treats it like a trademark, rather than a generic term that was in use for this class of product before MS appropriated it.
2. If you're going to treat it like a trademark, don't violate it in the same sentence.
Great work
If you don't need interactive/animated features, I can absolutely recommend to have the agent build slides in HTML and convert it to PDF. Has been a game changer for me.
I’m having trouble having it take reference PowerPoint slides and converting them to html, chart and labels misplaced, the charts don’t look drawn properly, etc. how did you solve this?
cool,
im working on something similar. A fine-tuned model for agents to interact with docx over MCP. they wont have to deal with OOXML.
we have a waiting list for beta-users: www.vespper.com
Feel like overnight I suddenly started seeing so much stuff and comments on here concerning generating Office documents with the LLMs. What could be driving this? Doesn't latex or similar seem like a better fit here?
People want to generate corporate content. For years now, it comes and goes.
cool,
im working on something similar. A fine-tuned model for agents to interact with docx over MCP. they wont have to deal with OOXML vespper.com