Add Tatsu to Word, Excel and PowerPoint
Copying between a chat window and your document is where mistakes slip in. Add Tatsu to Word, Excel or PowerPoint, and it works inside the file you have open, with your Library at hand.
BetaTakes about 5 minutes
Steps
What an add-in is, and what it can see
An Office add-in is a panel that opens beside your document. It runs in its own protected space and, like most add-ins, it can read and change the file you have open. Many add-ins come from Microsoft's store; you can also add one yourself by uploading its manifest, a small file that tells Office where the add-in lives.
When someone else edits your document, the safest edit is one you can see and reject. In Word, Tatsu's edits arrive as tracked changes, the way a colleague's would.
What Tatsu can do
- In Word: read the document, edit text, tables and formatting as tracked changes, and add or answer comments.
- In Excel: write values and formulas, format cells, build tables and charts, and add sheets.
- In PowerPoint: build slides with text, images and tables, and change their layout and order.
- Search your Library while it works, and cite the files it uses.
What Tatsu cannot do
- Track its edits in older Word. Older one-time-purchase Word, such as 2016, 2019 or 2021, may lack the feature, so its edits can go in untracked there. Check each one.
- Track changes in Excel or PowerPoint. Check what it changed before you share the file.
- Duplicate a slide, write speaker notes or insert an editable chart in PowerPoint.
How it fits with your Library, memory and apps
The add-in works from the same Library and memory as the web app. Tatsu can cite a contract while it edits your proposal; under “Sources” below its answer, choose the file to open it in Tatsulok in your browser. It follows your instructions and what it knows about you: see Teach Tatsu how you work. Chats you start in Word also appear in your chat list on the web, and figures you keep in an app can feed a report: see Keep records with an app.
You stay in charge
- Tatsu changes the open file only when you ask in the panel.
- Its comments in Word are ordinary comments: reply to them or delete them.
- The add-in appears only where you uploaded it: that browser, or that app on your computer.
Privacy
- When you ask in the panel, your prompt and the context it needs, such as parts of the open file and passages from your Library, go to the model provider for that one request.
- The model providers that answer your questions commit to no training and to keeping none of your content afterwards.
Questions
- Why do I upload a file instead of installing from Microsoft's store?
- The add-in is in Beta and not in Microsoft's store yet, so you add it yourself with its manifest file.
- Does it work in desktop Word, Excel and PowerPoint?
- Yes, with extra steps. On a Mac, put manifest.xml in the app's wef folder and restart the app. On Windows, the desktop apps load it from a shared folder. The setup page has both.
- Why did Tatsu disappear from Word for the web?
- Office on the web keeps an uploaded add-in in your browser. After you clear browsing data, or in another browser or on another computer, upload manifest.xml again.
- Are Tatsu's edits always tracked in Word?
- In Word for the web and Microsoft 365, yes, even with Track Changes off. Older one-time-purchase Word, such as 2016, 2019 or 2021, may lack the feature it needs, so check each edit there.
- Does it work in Outlook or on an iPad?
- Not today. For mail, connect Gmail or Outlook in the web app: Connect your email.