Build Excel files with working formulas in Claude

What it is

A skill is a saved set of instructions that teaches AI to do one job your way. Anthropic, the company behind Claude, provides built-in skills. One of them is listed in Anthropic's help pages as "Enhanced Excel spreadsheet creation and manipulation".

With it on, you describe the spreadsheet you want in plain language. Claude creates an Excel file that you can download and use. Anthropic's help pages say this includes financial models with working formulas, analysis of data you upload, and reports with charts.

Who it is for

It suits anyone who needs a quick tracker, budget sheet or summary table and does not want to build it from scratch. Think of finance, operations, HR and sales roles. It also helps if you often ask AI for data help and then spend time reformatting the answer.

What you need

• A Claude account on the Free, Pro, Max, Ultra, Team or Enterprise plan. Anthropic's help pages list all of these as able to use skills.
• Code execution and file creation turned on. The skills feature requires code execution.
• On Team and Enterprise plans, an organization Owner may need to allow skills first (see the steps below).
• Claude on the web, Claude Desktop or Claude Mobile. The help pages say file creation is available on all three.

Set it up

1. On a Team or Enterprise plan, ask your organization Owner to go to Organization settings > Plugins & skills and open the "Policy" tab. They need to make sure both the code execution and file creation setting and the Skills setting are enabled. Anthropic's help pages say Team plans have this enabled by default at the organization level.
2. On a Free, Pro, Max or Ultra plan, go to Settings > Capabilities.
3. Make sure Code execution and file creation is on. In the updated Settings layout it is called Create and edit files.
4. Go to Customize > Skills.
5. Find the Excel spreadsheet skill in the list. The help pages do not give the exact label shown there, so look for the one about Excel.
6. Toggle it on.

On Claude Mobile, the help pages say to tap your initials or name in the left sidebar to open Settings, choose Capabilities, and toggle Code execution and file creation.

A first thing to try

Once the skill is on, you do not need to name it. Anthropic's help pages say Claude decides when a skill is needed based on your request. Try something like this:

Create an Excel tracker for my team's weekly tasks. Include columns for task, owner, due date and status. Add a formula that counts how many tasks are overdue, and a chart showing tasks by status.

When Claude finishes, download the file and open it in Excel. If something is off, ask Claude to change it in the same chat, for example "Add a column for priority and sort by due date."

Limits and privacy

• Skills need code execution turned on. If it is off, the skill will not work.
• On Team and Enterprise plans, Owners control these settings. Anthropic's help pages say Owners can disable code execution and file creation in organization settings.
• Network access is a separate setting. On Free, Pro, Max and Ultra plans, the help pages say it is on and lets Claude install packages from approved sources. For Team and Enterprise, Owners can change it in Organization settings > Capabilities. With it off, Claude uses only pre-installed packages and has no internet access.
• Custom skills you upload yourself are not visible to colleagues until you share them. This is separate from the built-in Excel skill.
• The pages you would use for this setup do not describe how your uploaded data is stored or used. Check Anthropic's privacy pages before you upload sensitive files.

Turn the skill on once, then ask for your next tracker in plain words.

Where these steps come from

Steps from Anthropic's documentation, checked 13 Nov 2026.

• Use skills in Claude
• What are skills?
• Create and edit files with Claude

This guide was written by AI from the pages above. Menus and plans change, so open them if a step looks different.