Feature Request: Support drag-and-drop for binary documents (.wps, .doc, .docx, .xlsx, .pdf) in VS Code extension
Problem
When users drag-and-drop or attach binary document files in the VS Code extension, the file content is not transmitted to Claude Code. The message appears as [Unsupported Document] and Claude cannot see the file content.
Currently, only plain text files (.txt, .md, code files) work with drag-and-drop.
Affected formats
.wps(WPS Office).doc/.docx(Microsoft Word).xlsx/.xls(Microsoft Excel).pdf(Portable Document Format)
Current workaround
Users must manually convert files to .txt or copy-paste the file path for Claude to read via shell tools — a poor UX for non-technical users.
Proposed solution
When a binary document file is attached/dropped, the VS Code extension could:
- Option A (lightweight): Detect the file type and automatically invoke a local conversion tool to extract text before sending to Claude:
- For
.docx: use themammothnpm library - For
.xlsx: use thexlsx(SheetJS) npm library - For
.pdf: use thepdf-parsenpm library - For
.wps/.doc: use LibreOffice headless (soffice --headless --convert-to txt)
- Option B (fallback): If no conversion tool is available, at least pass the file path to Claude so it can attempt to read the file, rather than silently dropping it as
[Unsupported Document].
- Option C (integration): Allow users to configure external converters in settings.json, e.g.:
``json``
{
"claude.fileConverters": {
".wps": "soffice --headless --convert-to txt {input} --outdir {outputDir}"
}
}
Use case
Common in enterprise/engineering environments where users frequently share WPS, Word, Excel and PDF documents for review, proofreading, and analysis via Claude Code.
Environment
- OS: Windows 11 Pro for Workstations
- VS Code extension version: current
- Claude Code version: current
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