Claude inside the apps you already use: Sheets, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Slides
Claude now works inside Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and inside Google Docs, Sheets and Slides. You stop pasting files into a chat and pasting the answer back. This guide has the install for both suites, then one section per app with the prompts I'd start with:
Google Sheets: my 5 Sheets prompts
Word: my 5 Word prompts
Excel and PowerPoint together: my 5 cross-app prompts
Record a skill on a Mac: my recording checklist
Google Slides: my 5 Slides prompts
The numbers in the prompts (Q3, slide 4, 30 days) are samples. Swap in your own.
What you need
A paid Claude plan: Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise. None of these work on Free.
For Google: Chrome, Edge or Safari. Firefox isn't supported while it's in beta.
For Microsoft: a recent desktop Office or the web version. For Word that's Word on Mac 16.61 or later, Windows Microsoft 365 2205 or later, or Word on the web. Word 2016, Word 2019, the iPad app and old .doc files aren't supported.
For recording a skill: a Mac with the Claude desktop app, on Pro, Max or Team.
Install it once
Google Docs, Sheets and Slides. Install Claude for Google Workspace from the Google Workspace Marketplace. "One install from the Marketplace adds Claude to all three." Then open any doc, sheet or deck and go to Extensions > Claude > Open Claude.
It's in public beta on all paid plans.
On Team and Enterprise, an owner or primary owner has to turn on the connectors first.
If your company's Google Workspace blocks Marketplace apps, an admin has to allowlist Claude.
Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Go to the Claude for Microsoft 365 listing on Microsoft AppSource and select "Get it now". Open the app, activate the add-in and sign in with your Claude account. These add-ins are generally available on all paid plans.
On a work Microsoft 365 account, your Microsoft admin has to allow users to access the Office Store.
Your chat history stays in your browser, and what you do counts against your normal Claude limits.
1. Google Sheets: my 5 Sheets prompts
In Sheets, Claude can write formulas, build pivot tables and native Sheets charts, and add new tabs. For joins or data cleaning, it can pull a range into Python and write the results back into the sheet.
By default it runs in "Ask before edits" mode: each change shows up as an approval card with a summary, and Claude waits for your OK. Read the card before you approve it.
1. Pivot table and chart
Add a new tab with a pivot table of revenue by region and month, and a column chart of it.
2. A formula you can't remember
In column G, add a formula that shows each row's revenue as a share of its region's total. Explain the formula in one line.
3. Clean-up
This tab has duplicate rows and dates in mixed formats. Clean it up in Python and write the cleaned rows to a new tab. Leave the original tab as it is.
4. Join two tabs
Match each order on the Orders tab to its customer on the Customers tab by customer ID, and put the combined table on a new tab.
5. Summary tab
Add a Summary tab with total units and revenue for each product, the top 3 products by revenue, and a chart of the monthly totals.
The mistake to avoid
Closing the sidebar while it works. That stops the task. Keep it open until the last card is done. One long operation can run for up to 6 minutes.
It also works only on the file you have open: "Claude can't open, create, or copy other files in Drive." If the data you need is in another file, copy it into a tab of this one first.
2. Word: my 5 Word prompts
Claude for Word puts Claude in a sidebar beside your document. Turn on tracked changes mode before you ask. Then "Claude's edits land as tracked revisions": the old text shows as a deletion and the new text as an insertion, and you accept or reject each one in Word's review pane.
It also works through comments. "For each comment, Claude edits the anchored passage and replies to the thread with a note explaining what it did."
1. Tighten one section
Tighten section 2 and make the payment terms 30 days.
2. Clear the comments
Work through every comment in this document. Make each change, and reply to each comment with what you changed.
3. Cut it down
Cut this document's length without dropping any obligation, date or dollar amount.
4. One term, used the same way
Find every place this document calls the same thing by different names, like "Client" and "Customer", and make them consistent.
5. Rewrite for a new reader
Rewrite the introduction for someone who hasn't seen this project before. Keep it under 120 words.
The mistake to avoid
Accepting every change in one click. Read each tracked change first: that's the reason they're tracked.
And only use it on documents you trust. Anthropic's docs warn that a file from outside can hide instructions for Claude inside it.
3. Excel and PowerPoint together: my 5 cross-app prompts
The Claude add-ins can share one conversation across your open files. In Anthropic's words: "Pull numbers from an Excel model into a PowerPoint slide or a Word memo." And "You stay in one place while Claude does the switching."
Set it up:
Open the workbook and the deck (and the Word memo, if you're using one).
In each add-in, open Settings and turn on "Let Claude work across files".
This setting is on by default on Pro and Max and off by default on Team and Enterprise. It's per device, so turn it on in every app you want to use together. On Team and Enterprise, an owner can turn it off for the whole organization (Organization settings > Office agents > "Let Claude work across apps").
1. Excel to slide
Put the Q3 revenue from my workbook on slide 4 as a chart.
2. Excel to memo
Take the totals from the Summary sheet in my workbook and put them in the Results section of my memo as a short table.
3. Slide to sheet
Copy the numbers from the table on slide 6 into a new sheet in my workbook.
4. Memo to deck
Turn the 3 recommendations in my memo into one slide in my deck, one line each.
5. Check the deck against the workbook
Check every number on my slides against the workbook and list any that don't match.
The mistake to avoid
Asking Claude to open a file. "Claude cannot create, open, close, or switch files directly. The files and add-ins must be open with the feature turned on." Open everything first.
It also isn't available if your company runs Claude through Bedrock, Vertex AI, Azure AI Foundry or an LLM gateway.
4. Record a skill on a Mac: my recording checklist
A skill is a saved set of instructions Claude follows when that job comes up. Instead of writing one, you can record yourself doing the job, and Claude drafts the skill from the recording.
It's in Cowork in the Claude desktop app for Mac, on Pro, Max and Team. It isn't available in chat, on Windows, or on Free and Enterprise plans.
To start: in Cowork, click "+" in the message box, then "Record a skill".
Before you record
Update the Claude app for Mac to the latest version.
Pick one job you do the same way every time, that takes under about 10 minutes. "A recording can run for about 10 minutes."
Close email, chat apps and anything private. "Everything on your screen is captured for the length of the session, along with anything you say."
Have your sample files open and ready, so you're not hunting for them on camera.
The first time, macOS asks for Accessibility and Screen Recording access. It may ask you to restart Claude.
While you record
Do the job the way you normally do it.
Say why you do each step, not only what you click. That's what turns a recording into instructions.
Don't type passwords or open private messages.
After you click Done
Claude reviews the recording and proposes a skill. Read the whole draft before you save it.
If a step is wrong, tell Claude in the task what to change, then save it.
Run the skill on the next real job and check the result.
The video and audio aren't kept, but screenshots from the session stay in the Cowork task until you delete it. Delete the task if anything private got captured.
On Team, if "Record a skill" doesn't appear, ask your owner to check that Skills and "Cloud code execution and file creation" are on in Organization settings.
Prefer to type it? My guide "Your first Claude skill: turn the instructions you keep pasting into one" shows how to ask Claude to write a skill for you.
The mistake to avoid
Recording with your inbox or a client file open in another window. It captures the whole screen. Clear it before you press record.
5. Google Slides: my 5 Slides prompts
With Claude for Google Workspace installed, open your deck and go to Extensions > Claude > Open Claude. "Claude can build new slides from your deck's layouts and themes, so they match the rest of the deck. Then it can check its work and flag elements that overlap or run off the slide, or text that's hard to read."
1. Sum up the numbers
Add 2 slides that sum up the Q3 numbers, using this deck's layouts.
2. Split a crowded slide
Turn the bullet points on slide 5 into 3 slides, one point each, with a short headline on each.
3. Section dividers
Add a section divider slide before each section, using this deck's divider layout.
4. A chart slide
Add a new slide with a chart of these numbers: [paste your numbers].
5. Check the deck
Check every slide for anything that overlaps, runs off the slide or is hard to read, and fix it.
The mistake to avoid
Expecting its charts to update. "Charts Claude creates are inserted as images, not linked Sheets charts, so they do not update when numbers change." When the numbers change, ask again.
Like Sheets, it works only on the deck you have open.