excel-hello-world

page_type	sample
urlFragment	excel-add-in-hello-world
products	office-excel office m365
languages	javascript
extensions	contentType technologies createdDate samples Add-ins 10/11/2021 10:00:00 AM
description	Create a simple Excel add-in that displays hello world.

Create an Excel add-in that displays hello world

Summary

Learn how to build the simplest Office Add-in with only a manifest, HTML web page, and a logo. This sample helps you understand the fundamental parts of an Office Add-in.

Features

• Display hello world in Excel.
• Learn fundamentals of the manifest.
• Use either the XML manifest or the unified manifest for Microsoft 365.
• Learn how to initialize the Office JavaScript API library.
• Interact with document content through Office JavaScript APIs.

Applies to

• Excel on Windows, Mac, and the web.

Prerequisites

• Microsoft 365 - Get a free developer sandbox by joining the Microsoft 365 Developer Program.
• Office 2304 (Build 16320.20000) or later for unified manifest support.

Understand an Office Add-in

An Office Add-in is a web application that extends Office with additional functionality for the user. For example, an add-in can add ribbon buttons, a task pane, or a content pane with the functionality you want. Because an Office Add-in is a web application, you must provide a web server to host the files.

The sample contained in this folder is designed to run in Excel.

Key components

The hello world sample implements the Manifest and Web app components identified in Components of an Office Add-in.

Manifest

The manifest file describes your add-in to Office. It contains information such as a unique identifier, name, what buttons to show on the ribbon, and more. Importantly, the manifest provides URL locations for where Office can find and download the add-in's resource files. The manifest and two icon files are combined into a zip package file that is sideloaded to Office.

Web app

The hello world sample implements a task pane named taskpane.html that contains HTML and JavaScript. The taskpane.html file contains all the code necessary to display a task pane, interact with the user, and write "Hello world!" into cell 'A1' on the active worksheet.

Initialize the Office JavaScript API library

The sample initializes the Office JavaScript API library with a call to office.onReady() in the taskpane.html file. This is required before you can make any calls to the Office JavaScript APIs. For more information about initialization, see Initialize your Office Add-in.

Office.onReady((info) => {});

Write to the worksheet

When the user selects the Say hello button, the sayHello() function is called. This function then calls Excel.run to run code and call the Office JavaScript APIs. It uses a context object provided by the Office JavaScript API library to get the active worksheet's A1 range value and set the value to "Hello world!". Calling context.sync() runs the command.

For more information see Tutorial: Create an Excel task pane add-in

function sayHello() {
  Excel.run((context) => {
    context.workbook.worksheets.getActiveWorksheet().getRange('A1').values = [
      ['Hello world!'],
    ];
    return context.sync();
  });
}

Decide on a manifest type

There are two types of manifests for Office Add-ins. For more information about the differences between them, see Office Add-ins manifest.

• Add-in only manifest: By default, the sample supports the add-in only manifest. In the root of the sample, there are two versions of the add-in only manifest to support the two ways of hosting the web app part of the add-in: manifest.xml and manifest-localhost.xml. For convenience, a copy of the files needed for using the add-in only manifest can be found in the manifest-configurations/add-in-only subfolder.

  To work with the add-in only manifest continue with the Use the add-in only manifest section.

• Unified manifest for Microsoft 365: To work the unified manifest (manifest.json), you need to copy all the files from the manifest-configurations/unified subfolder to the sample's root directory, replacing any existing files that have the same names. (We recommend that you also delete the manifest.xml and manifest-localhost.xml files from root directory, so only files needed for the unified manifest are present in the root.)

  To work with the unified manifest continue with the Use the unified manifest section.

  Note: If you ever want to switch back to the add-in only manifest, copy the files in the manifest-configurations/add-in-only subfolder to the sample's root directory. We recommend that you delete the following files the root of the sample, so only files needed for the add-only manifest are present in the root.

  • manifest.json
  • package.json
  • package-lock.json
  • webpack.config.js

Use the add-in only manifest

Run the sample in Excel on the web

An Office Add-in requires you to configure a web server to provide all the resources, such as HTML, image, and JavaScript files. The hello world sample is configured so that the files are hosted directly from this GitHub repo. Use the following steps to sideload the manifest.xml file to see the sample run.

1. Download the manifest.xml file from the sample folder for Excel.

2. Open Excel on the web.

3. Open a new blank workbook.

4. On the Home tab on the ribbon in the Add-ins section, select Add-ins and then Advanced....

5. On the Office Add-ins dialog, select Upload My Add-in.

   

6. Browse to the add-in manifest file, and then select Upload.

   

7. Verify that the add-in loaded successfully. You will see a Hello world button on the Home tab on the ribbon.

8. Select the Hello world button on the Home tab to display the task pane of the add-in. Select the Say hello button to insert "Hello world!" in cell A1.

Run the sample in Excel on Windows or Mac

Office Add-ins are cross-platform so you can also run them on Windows, Mac, and iPad. The following links take you to documentation for how to sideload on Windows, Mac, or iPad. Be sure you have a local copy of the manifest.xml file for the Hello world sample. Then follow the sideloading instructions for your platform.

• Sideload Office Add-ins for testing from a network share
• Sideload Office Add-ins on Mac for testing
• Sideload Office Add-ins on iPad for testing

Configure a localhost web server and run the sample from localhost

If you prefer to configure a web server and host the add-in's web files from your computer, use the following steps:

1. Install a recent version of npm and Node.js on your computer. To verify if you've already installed these tools, run the commands node -v and npm -v in your terminal.

2. You need http-server to run the local web server. If you haven't installed this yet you can do this with the following command:

   npm install --global http-server

3. You need Office-Addin-dev-certs to generate self-signed certificates to run the local web server. If you haven't installed this yet you can do this with the following command:

   npm install --global office-addin-dev-certs

4. Clone or download this sample to a folder on your computer. Then go to that folder in a console or terminal window.

5. Run the following command to generate a self-signed certificate that you can use for the web server.

   npx office-addin-dev-certs install

   The previous command will display the folder location where it generated the certificate files.

6. Go to the folder location where the certificate files were generated. Copy the localhost.crt and localhost.key files to the hello world sample folder.

7. Run the following command:

   http-server -S -C localhost.crt -K localhost.key --cors . -p 3000

   The http-server will run and host the current folder's files on localhost:3000.

Now that your localhost web server is running, you can sideload the manifest-localhost.xml file provided in the excel-hello-world folder. Using the manifest-localhost.xml file, follow the steps in Run the sample on Excel on the web to sideload and run the add-in.

Use the unified manifest

Run the sample with GitHub as host

An Office Add-in requires you to configure a web server to provide all the resources, such as HTML, image, and JavaScript files. The hello world sample is configured so that the files are hosted directly from this GitHub repo, so all you need to do is build the manifest and package, and then sideload the package.

1. Clone or download this sample to a folder on your computer. Then in a command prompt, bash shell, or TERMINAL in Visual Studio Code, navigate to the root of the sample folder. Remember to copy the files in the manifest-configurations/add-in-only subfolder to the sample's root directory.
2. Run the command npm install.
3. Run the command npm run build.
4. Run the command npm run start:prod.

After a few seconds, desktop Excel opens, and after a few seconds more, a Hello World button appears on the right end of the Home ribbon.

1. Select the Hello world button to display the task pane of the add-in.
2. Select the Say hello button to insert "Hello world!" in cell A1.

When you're finished working with the add-in, close Excel, and then in the window where you ran the three npm commands, run npm run stop:prod.

Questions and feedback

• Did you experience any problems with the sample? Create an issue and we'll help you out.
• We'd love to get your feedback about this sample. Go to our Office samples survey to give feedback and suggest improvements.
• For general questions about developing Office Add-ins, go to Microsoft Q&A using the office-js-dev tag.

Copyright

Copyright (c) 2021 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information, see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.

Note: The taskpane.html file contains an image URL that tracks diagnostic data for this sample add-in. Please remove the image tag if you reuse this sample in your own code project.