Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

ChatGPT for Excel

chatgpt.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 209 posts

Re: ChatGPT for Excel

#161

Post by p_ing »

com2kid wrote: post #100
p_ing wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never did this. WAC was the original version (integrated with SharePoint Server). Everything was server-side.

While working at MS I remember someone in the office team saying that the original version of Excel online spun to the actual Excel backend and had it output HTML instead of the usual win32 UI. Was I misinformed by chance?

Excel Online was a component of WAC. It was an ASP.NET (and C++???) web application that used OAuth between SharePoint Server and Exchange Server.

So I mean yes, you viewed Excel docs through a webpage just like you do today via ODSP or OneDrive consumer. The backend is completely different in the cloud service, though.

Re: ChatGPT for Excel

#162

Post by rahimnathwani »

howdareme9 wrote: post #147
rahimnathwani wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How well does this work compared with using GPT-5.4 in Nicopreme’s Pi for Excel?

have you got a link to this?

Sorry, I got the author wrong.

It's here: https://github.com/tmustier/pi-for-excel

Re: ChatGPT for Excel

#163

Post by compass_copium »

basch wrote: post #87
mohamedkoubaa wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft is better off not allowing copilot basic because of the reputational harm it will do. Not that they are thinking through copilot rationally

it was a good name when chosen. too bad they have burned bob, clippy, cortana, sydney, and copilot already.

Don't forget Tay!

Re: ChatGPT for Excel

#164

Post by giancarlostoro »

lateforwork wrote: post #4

This looks bad for Microsoft. They added a Copilot button to all their products but it doesn't do much more than open a chat side panel. I recently tried Claude Cowork for PowerPoint and I was stunned by the content as well as design quality of the deck it produced. That's a threat for Microsoft because now you don't need the editing tools of PowerPoint, AI replaces it, so all you need is the presentation mode of Pow…

I am still surprised that outside of open source AI models, Microsoft is just routing to external models, to a degree its kind of smart because they don't have to have all the skin in the game for the infrastructure, plus they sell some of the hosting anyway, but man. Why does Microsoft not have a frontier model yet? Would have been a great time any time in the last few years to introduce a real Cortana AI model.

Re: ChatGPT for Excel

#165

Post by boringg »

screye wrote: post #8
lateforwork wrote: post #4

This looks bad for Microsoft. They added a Copilot button to all their products but it doesn't do much more than open a chat side panel. I recently tried Claude Cowork for PowerPoint and I was stunned by the content as well as design quality of the deck it produced. That's a threat for Microsoft because now you don't need the editing tools of PowerPoint, AI replaces it, so all you need is the presentation mode of Pow…

If AI winning means that data center companies win out, then the wins for Azure will more than make up for the death of Office. I am surprised that Microsoft's own copilot product is so far behind though.

Aren't they providing a wrapper for the work of another company? IE msft isn't actually doing any foundational work thus they can't meaningfully move product capability, just wait for the model to improve and integrate it?

Re: ChatGPT for Excel

#166

Post by compass_copium »

chris_money202 wrote: post #152
vipipiccf wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the same experience. Copilot for Excel can't even parse basic cell references. Meanwhile Claude handles document formatting in one pass. The catch is it works externally, not inside the app, but at least it works. The MCP ecosystem is what makes this interesting. Claude isn't just a chat panel bolted onto existing software, it's building integrations that actually manipulate the files. Microsoft had the dist…

stride.microsoft.com -> microsoft has this stuff you just don’t know it unless you are an M365 power user

I would consider myself an M365 power user and I was not aware of this. It is not well promoted--and after all the Copilot crap, I would be annoyed even if it was.

Regardless, I just tried to log in with my work MS account, and I can't do so.

Re: ChatGPT for Excel

#167

Post by p_ing »

jxmesth wrote: post #146
p_ing wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheaper to get M365 Copilot licenses for the Claude models in Excel.

I tried looking this up but wasn't able to find info on this on Microsoft's website. Do you have a link for this?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/choose-your-model-...

Re: ChatGPT for Excel

#168

Post by p_ing »

chris_money202 wrote: post #149
lateforwork wrote: post #4

This looks bad for Microsoft. They added a Copilot button to all their products but it doesn't do much more than open a chat side panel. I recently tried Claude Cowork for PowerPoint and I was stunned by the content as well as design quality of the deck it produced. That's a threat for Microsoft because now you don't need the editing tools of PowerPoint, AI replaces it, so all you need is the presentation mode of Pow…

stride.microsoft.com is the cowork equivalent I believe.

Only for personal accounts. Enterprise customers have a Frontier agent called Copilot Cowork via the M365 Copilot app.... copilot.

Re: ChatGPT for Excel

#169

Post by bdcravens »

arjie wrote: post #102

I’ve always found it unbelievable how bad Gemini’s Google Sheets interaction is. Copying the sheets into Claude and then modifying them there and copying them back actually outperforms it. Nowadays I just make single-purpose websites with Claude Code because Google Sheets has such poor AI integration and is outrageously tedious to edit. They had all the parts and I have a subscription and it still does terrible thing…

I tried it the other day to work on some exported CSVs when doing my taxes. I was finally able to get it to do what I wanted, but it was definitely an exercise, feeling like I was talking to Chat GPT from a couple of years ago. (as in a really smart but easily distracted and confused child)

Re: ChatGPT for Excel

#170

Post by ebiester »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #164
lateforwork wrote: post #4

This looks bad for Microsoft. They added a Copilot button to all their products but it doesn't do much more than open a chat side panel. I recently tried Claude Cowork for PowerPoint and I was stunned by the content as well as design quality of the deck it produced. That's a threat for Microsoft because now you don't need the editing tools of PowerPoint, AI replaces it, so all you need is the presentation mode of Pow…

I am still surprised that outside of open source AI models, Microsoft is just routing to external models, to a degree its kind of smart because they don't have to have all the skin in the game for the infrastructure, plus they sell some of the hosting anyway, but man. Why does Microsoft not have a frontier model yet? Would have been a great time any time in the last few years to introduce a real Cortana AI model.

They explicitly said they were ceding the frontier model game to others, and that they were content saying a few months behind the state of the art. In the long run, this is an interesting freeloader play that a few people are making. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/04/microsoft-ai-chief-sees-bene...
Post reply on HN