Best SDKs for AI agents that handle Office and PDF files (buyer asking for advice)

Requested by a visitor · October 25, 2026

We asked 10 models: I am building an AI agent that needs to read and write Word, Excel, and PDF files. Which SDK would you recommend? Each named its own top 10.

Asked 4 ways: List request · Buyer asking for advice · Search query · Worth paying for?. Share of voice pools every wording.

Agreement between models: 21%
Same model, run twice: 50%
Different picks: 40

When agreement between models is well below a model's agreement with itself, the split reflects real differences in taste rather than randomness.

The consensus

Each cell is the position that model gave the pick; blank means it left the pick off. Click a row for each model's reasoning.

#	Pick	Listed by	Claude Haiku 5.5	GPT-6 Luna	Gemini 4 Argon	Qwen 3.8 Flash	DeepSeek V4 Pro	GLM-5.3	Kimi K3	MiniMax M3	Mistral Large 4	Nemotron 3 Ultra
1	Apache POI	8/10	1			4	1	6	4	1	9	9
Claude Haiku 5.5 (#1) Mature Java library covering Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, with solid read/write support. DeepSeek V4 Pro (#1) De facto Java standard for Office docs, mature and dependency-free. MiniMax M3 (#1) Standard open-source Java library for Word and Excel files. Kimi K3 (#4) Industry standard for Word and Excel; mature, free, deeply reliable. Mistral Large 4 (#9) The standard Java library for Office files; mature and battle-tested for agents on JVM. Nemotron 3 Ultra (#9) Java library for Microsoft Office formats.
2	Aspose.Total	6/10	7	1	2	1	2			2
GPT-6 Luna (#1) Broad SDK coverage for reading and writing Word, Excel, and PDF across many languages. Qwen 3.8 Flash (#1) One SDK covering Word, Excel, and PDF with strong conversion support. Gemini 4 Argon (#2) Industry standard for deep programmatic manipulation and creation of Word, Excel, and PDF files. DeepSeek V4 Pro (#2) Comprehensive commercial suite, handles every Office and PDF format reliably. MiniMax M3 (#2) Unified, mature SDK for Word, Excel, and PDF with strong .NET support.
3	Aspose.Words	7/10	9			5		1	1	4	1	5
GLM-5.3 (#1) Complete AI-native suite covering Word, Excel, PDF with mature agent APIs. Kimi K3 (#1) Best-in-class Word fidelity; commercial but unmatched rendering accuracy. Mistral Large 4 (#1) Best commercial SDK for advanced Word manipulation with fidelity and formatting preservation. Qwen 3.8 Flash (#5) Best-in-class document manipulation for Word files in any language. Nemotron 3 Ultra (#5) Commercial .NET/Java/Cloud Word processing. Claude Haiku 5.5 (#9) Commercial .NET and Java library with broad Word format fidelity.
4	Aspose.Cells	6/10				6		2	2	6	2	6
GLM-5.3 (#2) Best-in-class Excel generation/manipulation, essential for agent workflows. Kimi K3 (#2) Gold standard for Excel manipulation, formulas, charts, and formatting. Mistral Large 4 (#2) Powerful Excel engine supporting complex formulas, charts, and large workbook performance. Qwen 3.8 Flash (#6) Most complete Excel API including formulas, charts, and rendering. Nemotron 3 Ultra (#6) Commercial .NET/Java/Cloud Excel processing.
5	python-docx	6/10	6				9	3	8		5	1
Nemotron 3 Ultra (#1) Best Python library for Word docx creation/editing. GLM-5.3 (#3) Well-documented Python library for Excel and Word automation. Mistral Large 4 (#5) Most popular Python library for Word files; essential when paired with others for Excel/PDF. Claude Haiku 5.5 (#6) Simple, popular Python library for creating and editing Word documents. Kimi K3 (#8) Simple, Pythonic Word generation; perfect for templated documents. DeepSeek V4 Pro (#9) Best Python library for .docx reading and writing, simple API.
6	Aspose.PDF	6/10				9		4	3	7	3	8
Kimi K3 (#3) Strongest PDF generation and editing; pairs naturally with Aspose suite. Mistral Large 4 (#3) Comprehensive PDF creation, editing, and conversion SDK for enterprise agent workflows. GLM-5.3 (#4) Robust PDF creation and editing, widely trusted in enterprise. Nemotron 3 Ultra (#8) Commercial .NET/Java/Cloud PDF processing. Qwen 3.8 Flash (#9) Full-fidelity PDF creation, editing, and form handling.
7	openpyxl	7/10	4			8	10	9	10		6	2
Nemotron 3 Ultra (#2) Top Python library for Excel xlsx read/write. Claude Haiku 5.5 (#4) Widely used Python library for reading and writing Excel .xlsx files. Mistral Large 4 (#6) De facto standard for reading and writing Excel workbooks in Python agents. Qwen 3.8 Flash (#8) Free, dependable pure-Python choice for xlsx read/write. DeepSeek V4 Pro (#10) Dominant Python choice for Excel files, supports formulas and styling. Kimi K3 (#10) Go-to Python Excel library; clean API for reading and writing.
8	Apryse SDK	4/10		2	1				7	9
Gemini 4 Argon (#1) Unmatched native handling for reading and writing PDF, Word, and Excel without external dependencies. GPT-6 Luna (#2) Mature PDF and Office document processing with broad platform support. MiniMax M3 (#9) Best-in-class PDF engine with solid Office format support.
9	iText	3/10	2				3					10
Claude Haiku 5.5 (#2) Established commercial PDF library for generating and manipulating PDFs. DeepSeek V4 Pro (#3) Gold standard for PDF creation and manipulation in Java/.NET. Nemotron 3 Ultra (#10) Java/.NET PDF creation and manipulation.
10	Microsoft Graph	2/10				2					4
Qwen 3.8 Flash (#2) Native access to Word, Excel, and PDF across Microsoft 365 files. Mistral Large 4 (#4) Best unified API for reading/writing Word, Excel, and PDF in Microsoft 365 cloud documents.
11	Syncfusion Essential Studio	3/10		5	4					8
Gemini 4 Argon (#4) Comprehensive file format libraries for Word, Excel, and PDF with straightforward licensing. GPT-6 Luna (#5) Strong .NET and JavaScript libraries cover Word, Excel, and PDF workflows. MiniMax M3 (#8) Enterprise-grade suite with excellent Word, Excel, and PDF APIs.
12	Spire.Office	4/10		9	9		5			5
DeepSeek V4 Pro (#5) Solid cross-format alternative to Aspose, competitive pricing. MiniMax M3 (#5) Single commercial library covering Word, Excel, and PDF reliably. GPT-6 Luna (#9) Combined component set handles common Word, Excel, and PDF editing tasks.
13	Nutrient SDK	2/10		4	3
Gemini 4 Argon (#3) Modern, reliable document engine with strong multi-format reading, generation, and editing capabilities.
14	PyMuPDF	2/10	3									4
Claude Haiku 5.5 (#3) Fast, full-featured PDF reading, editing, and rendering for Python agents. Nemotron 3 Ultra (#4) Fast Python PDF rendering, editing, extraction.
15	GroupDocs.Total	2/10		3					5
GPT-6 Luna (#3) Unified document APIs span Word, Excel, and PDF conversion, editing, and processing.

25 lower-scoring picks are not shown; every ballot below lists them in full.

Most divisive

Picks most models listed, at very different positions

Apache POI#1 for Claude Haiku 5.5 #9 for Nemotron 3 Ultra
Aspose.Words#1 for GLM-5.3 #9 for Claude Haiku 5.5
python-docx#1 for Nemotron 3 Ultra #9 for DeepSeek V4 Pro

Hot takes

Picks that appear on only one ballot

Microsoft Office at #3, only Qwen 3.8 Flash
pdfplumber at #3, only Nemotron 3 Ultra
Telerik Document Processing at #5, only Gemini 4 Argon
Syncfusion Document SDK at #6, only GPT-6 Luna
GemBox.Bundle at #6, only Gemini 4 Argon
GrapeCity Documents at #7, only GPT-6 Luna
IronSuite at #7, only Gemini 4 Argon
docx at #7, only Qwen 3.8 Flash
pdf-lib at #7, only DeepSeek V4 Pro
pdfminer.six at #7, only Nemotron 3 Ultra
DevExpress Office File API at #8, only Gemini 4 Argon
EPPlus at #8, only DeepSeek V4 Pro

Every ballot

Hover a pick to find it on the other ballots. Marked picks appear on no other ballot.

Claude Haiku 5.5

Apache POI
iText
PyMuPDF
openpyxl
SheetJS
python-docx
Aspose.Total
Apache PDFBox
Aspose.Words
docx4j

51% with consensus · 52% self-consistent

GPT-6 Luna

Aspose.Total
Apryse SDK
GroupDocs.Total
Nutrient SDK
Syncfusion Essential Studio
Syncfusion Document SDK
GrapeCity Documents
GemBox.Document
Spire.Office
LibreOffice

23% with consensus · 53% self-consistent

Gemini 4 Argon

Apryse SDK
Aspose.Total
Nutrient SDK
Syncfusion Essential Studio
Telerik Document Processing
GemBox.Bundle
IronSuite
DevExpress Office File API
Spire.Office
Foxit PDF SDK

23% with consensus · 88% self-consistent

Qwen 3.8 Flash

Aspose.Total
Microsoft Graph
Microsoft Office
Apache POI
Aspose.Words
Aspose.Cells
docx
openpyxl
Aspose.PDF
SheetJS

47% with consensus · 25% self-consistent

DeepSeek V4 Pro

Apache POI
Aspose.Total
iText
Open XML SDK
Spire.Office
Apache PDFBox
pdf-lib
EPPlus
python-docx
openpyxl

60% with consensus · 74% self-consistent

GLM-5.3

Aspose.Words
Aspose.Cells
python-docx
Aspose.PDF
Open XML SDK
Apache POI
DocX
PyPDF2
openpyxl
pypdf

42% with consensus · 59% self-consistent

Kimi K3

Aspose.Words
Aspose.Cells
Aspose.PDF
Apache POI
GroupDocs.Total
Apache PDFBox
Apryse SDK
python-docx
Spire.Doc
openpyxl

43% with consensus · 44% self-consistent

MiniMax M3

Apache POI
Aspose.Total
GemBox.Document
Aspose.Words
Spire.Office
Aspose.Cells
Aspose.PDF
Syncfusion Essential Studio
Apryse SDK
DocX

76% with consensus · 6% self-consistent

Mistral Large 4

Aspose.Words
Aspose.Cells
Aspose.PDF
Microsoft Graph
python-docx
openpyxl
PyPDF2
Syncfusion DocIO
Apache POI
Syncfusion XlsIO

41% with consensus · 11% self-consistent

Nemotron 3 Ultra

python-docx
openpyxl
pdfplumber
PyMuPDF
Aspose.Words
Aspose.Cells
pdfminer.six
Aspose.PDF
Apache POI
iText

26% with consensus · 93% self-consistent

Who agrees with whom

Overlap between two models' lists, weighted toward the top · 100 means identical · Color runs from 0 (lightest) to 79 (darkest)

	Claude Haiku 5.5	GPT-6 Luna	Gemini 4 Argon	Qwen 3.8 Flash	DeepSeek V4 Pro	GLM-5.3	Kimi K3	MiniMax M3	Mistral Large 4	Nemotron 3 Ultra
Claude Haiku 5.5		3	3	17	58	13	16	41	13	28
GPT-6 Luna	3		60	36	22	0	10	28	0	0
Gemini 4 Argon	3	60		21	22	0	3	26	0	0
Qwen 3.8 Flash	17	36	21		31	19	24	44	27	17
DeepSeek V4 Pro	58	22	22	31		14	17	64	3	4
GLM-5.3	13	0	0	19	14		74	24	79	31
Kimi K3	16	10	3	24	17	74		29	75	18
MiniMax M3	41	28	26	44	64	24	29		19	15
Mistral Large 4	13	0	0	27	3	79	75	19		27
Nemotron 3 Ultra	28	0	0	17	4	31	18	15	27