paper-mcp

Search arXiv/Semantic Scholar/OpenAlex + medical evidence (PubMed/Europe PMC) + LaTeX/PDF tools.

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What it can do

    What data it sees

    Do you need an account

    No: the server works without sign-in

    Search arXiv/Semantic Scholar/OpenAlex + medical evidence (PubMed/Europe PMC) + LaTeX/PDF tools.

    How to connect

    How to connect paper-mcp to Claude

    The server address to paste into Claude settings:

    https://latex-tools.online/mcp

    1. Open Claude (claude.ai or the desktop app).
    2. Go to Settings → Connectors.
    3. Click Add custom connector.
    4. Paste the server address copied below into Remote MCP server URL and click Add.
    5. In a chat, click + → Connectors and switch the new connector on.

    Custom connectors are available on Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans (Free is limited to one). On Team and Enterprise an organization Owner adds the connector first under Organization settings → Connectors.

    Authorization

    After you click Add, a sign-in window for the service opens. Sign in with your own account and approve access. Claude never sees your password.

    How to connect paper-mcp to ChatGPT

    The server address to paste into ChatGPT settings:

    https://latex-tools.online/mcp

    1. Open ChatGPT in a browser (chatgpt.com). A Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise or Edu plan is required.
    2. Turn on developer mode once: Settings → Apps → Advanced settings → Developer mode.
    3. Open Settings → Connectors and click Create.
    4. Fill in the form: Name (anything), Description (one line about what the service does), MCP server URL (copy it below).
    5. Under Authentication choose OAuth if the service requires sign-in, otherwise None. Click Create.
    6. In a new chat open + → Apps/Connectors and enable the connector.

    OpenAI has renamed this section before (Connectors → Apps/Plugins). If the label differs, search settings for "developer mode". On Business/Enterprise workspaces an admin must allow custom connectors first.

    Authorization

    On first use ChatGPT opens the service's sign-in window. Sign in and approve access.

    How to connect paper-mcp to Cursor

    The server address to paste into Cursor settings:

    https://latex-tools.online/mcp

    Fastest: click Open in Cursor below and confirm the prompt.

    Manually:

    1. In Cursor open Settings → Cursor Settings → MCP and click Add new global MCP server.
    2. Paste the JSON copied below into ~/.cursor/mcp.json (per project: .cursor/mcp.json in the repo root).
    3. Save the file. The server appears in the MCP list; authorize it there if asked.

    Authorization

    If the service needs sign-in, an authorize button appears next to the server in the MCP list.

    Server tool list (41)

    Raw names from tools/list. Only developers need these.

    search_papersSearch academic papers. Returns normalized hits with a short abstract preview; call get_paper for the full record.
    search_allAggregated search across arXiv, Semantic Scholar and OpenAlex at once. Fans out concurrently, de-duplicates the same work across corpora (by DOI or title) and re-ranks with Reciprocal Rank Fusion, so papers found by several sources rank highest. Each hit lists which `sources` found it and an `ids` map ({source: id}) you can pass to get_paper / read_paper / the citation tools. Prefer this over search_papers for a broad lookup.
    search_medicalEvidence-graded MEDICAL literature search (PubMed + Europe PMC). Unlike search_all (generic, ranks high-cited reviews/guidelines above trials), this filters by research type via PubMed Publication-Type tags and re-ranks by the evidence pyramid (meta-analysis / systematic review > RCT > cohort > ...), so the actual clinical trials surface first. Open-access full text is pulled from Europe PMC by PMID. `query` should be English keyword/boolean text (PubMed maps it); do natural-language/multilingual understanding upstream. Returns hits with pmid/doi/study_type/evidence_level/citations/abstract and, when open-access, fulltext.
    get_paperFetch one paper by id, with full abstract and PDF link.
    search_by_authorFind papers by a specific author, newest first.
    list_recentList the latest papers in a subject category, newest first.
    list_categoriesList common subject category codes for filtering/recent.
    read_paperRead a paper's full text. format='markdown' (default, body with formulas as $LaTeX$), 'html' (raw LaTeXML HTML), or 'latex' (the original LaTeX manuscript from the e-print source). arXiv only; id like 2401.01234.
    list_paper_sourcesList available paper corpora.
    recognize_formulaRecognize a math formula from an image and return LaTeX. Provide image_url (downloaded server-side) OR image_base64. model: deepseek-ocr (default), paddleocr-vl, or texify. Returns {latex, model, elapsed_ms}.
    recognize_tableRecognize a table from an image and return LaTeX tabular code. Provide image_url OR image_base64. model: deepseek-ocr (default), paddleocr-vl, or texify. Returns {latex, model, elapsed_ms}.
    list_ocr_modelsList the OCR models available for recognize_formula / recognize_table.
    lint_latexLint a LaTeX snippet: report errors and return an auto-fixed version. Input `code` (the LaTeX source). Returns {errors, fixed_code, summary_en, summary_zh, elapsed_ms}.
    extract_pdfExtract a PDF to clean Markdown/LaTeX text via MinerU (great for papers behind no open-access full text — give the user's PDF and get readable text back). Provide pdf_url (downloaded server-side, SSRF-guarded) OR pdf_base64. formula/table toggle math/table reconstruction. Returns {task_id, status, cached, content, chars}: a recently-seen (cached) or small PDF comes back with `content` in one call; a fresh PDF (MinerU is GPU-heavy, minutes) returns status='running' + a task_id — then call extract_pdf_result(task_id) to fetch the text.
    extract_pdf_resultFetch the result of an extract_pdf job by task_id. Returns {task_id, status, content, chars}: `content` is the extracted text once status='done'; while still 'running' content is null — call again shortly. Results expire server-side, so fetch reasonably soon.
    get_paper_citationsSemantic Scholar: papers that CITE this one (forward citation graph). id accepts S2 id / DOI: / ARXIV: / CorpusId:.
    get_paper_referencesSemantic Scholar: papers this one REFERENCES (its bibliography). id accepts S2 id / DOI: / ARXIV: / CorpusId:.
    get_paper_authorsSemantic Scholar: the authors of a paper (with h-index, paper/citation counts).
    match_paper_titleSemantic Scholar: find the single paper whose title best matches the given text (exact-match lookup).
    autocomplete_papersSemantic Scholar: autocomplete paper titles for a partial query (fast type-ahead).
    search_papers_bulkSemantic Scholar: bulk paper search (up to 1000 hits, sortable e.g. 'citationCount:desc' or 'publicationDate:desc', with a continuation token). Filters: fields_of_study, year (e.g. '2020-2024'), venue, publication_types, open_access_pdf.
    get_papers_batchSemantic Scholar: fetch many papers at once by id (S2/DOI:/ARXIV:/CorpusId:), up to ~500 per call.
    search_authorsSemantic Scholar: search for authors by name; returns profiles with h-index and paper/citation counts.
    get_authorSemantic Scholar: a single author's profile by id.
    get_author_papersSemantic Scholar: all papers by a given author id, newest first.
    get_authors_batchSemantic Scholar: fetch many authors at once by id.
    search_snippetsSemantic Scholar: search INSIDE paper full text and return matching text snippets (not just titles/abstracts).
    recommend_papers_for_paperSemantic Scholar: recommend papers similar to one paper. pool='recent' (last open corpus) or 'all-cs' (all of CS). If the 'recent' pool yields nothing (common for older papers), it automatically retries the 'all-cs' pool.
    recommend_papers_from_examplesSemantic Scholar: recommend papers from positive (and optional negative) example paper ids.
    list_dataset_releasesSemantic Scholar Datasets: list all available release ids (dated snapshots of the full corpus).
    get_dataset_releaseSemantic Scholar Datasets: which datasets a release contains (papers, abstracts, citations, embeddings, s2orc, tldrs…). release_id defaults to 'latest'.
    get_dataset_download_linksSemantic Scholar Datasets: get download links (presigned URLs) for one dataset in a release. Needs the API key.
    get_dataset_diffsSemantic Scholar Datasets: incremental diff (added/updated/deleted) for a dataset between two releases. Needs the key.
    get_openalex_workOpenAlex: fetch one work's full record (316M-work, all-field corpus). id accepts OpenAlex Wxxxx, a DOI, or an arXiv id.
    get_openalex_citationsOpenAlex: papers that CITE this work (forward citation graph), most-cited first.
    get_openalex_referencesOpenAlex: the works this one REFERENCES (its bibliography).
    search_openalex_authorsOpenAlex: search authors; returns profiles with h-index, i10-index, works/citation counts and institutions.
    search_openalex_institutionsOpenAlex: search institutions (universities, labs) with ROR id, country, works/citation counts.
    search_openalex_worksOpenAlex: advanced filtered work search. Filters: from_year, to_year, is_oa (open access only), min_citations, institution_id. sort_by: relevance|newest|cited.
    get_openalex_trendsOpenAlex: publication-trend analytics for a query — counts grouped by year (default), or by 'institutions.id', 'authorships.author.id', 'open_access.is_oa', 'type', 'language'. Returns aggregate counts only (cheap, no rows).
    list_openalex_topicsOpenAlex: search the topic taxonomy (~4500 topics) to find the right subject term for filtering or recent-work queries.