Excel tables, formulas and charts

What it does

The assistant can build an Excel (.xlsx) file from figures you give it: a table with a total that is a real formula, a bar chart of the figures, or a formula in every row. The file appears as a card in the reply, and you download it from there. It cannot produce the old Excel format .xls.

To change an Excel file the assistant made in this conversation, ask for the change in plain words, for example "now add a total row", then "add a chart". The assistant re-opens that file and builds on it instead of starting over. The workbook is updated in place: it stays the same file and gets a new version, and the reply says so. See Code interpreter. A file you uploaded yourself is never changed: the assistant saves a new version instead (see Chat: Generated files).

How to ask

Name the format ("an Excel file"), give the figures, and say where they go when the position matters: the column, the row or the cell. Say "formula" when you want one. Below are three prompts you can copy and adapt. Each prompt was run on the three Myra-hosted models, ten runs each. A run counts as passed when the file the assistant delivered opens as a real Excel file and contains the facts named in the prompt (the named cells, the formula, the chart), and the reply does not report a failure or a defect in the file; the table shows how many of the ten runs passed.

Total with a formula

Make an Excel file: column A Region, column B Sales. Rows 2 to 5: North 120, South 95, East 143, West 88. In B6 a total that uses a formula.

Tested on: qwen3.8-27b, gemma-4-31b-it

Not recommended for: mistral-small-4

Delivers an Excel file with the four regions and a formula in B6 that adds them up.

Bar chart in the file

Make an Excel file with the monthly costs January 1200, February 950, March 1430 and add a bar chart of them in the file.

Tested on: qwen3.8-27b, gemma-4-31b-it, mistral-small-4

Delivers an Excel file with the three monthly costs and a bar chart inside the file.

A formula in every row

Make an Excel file with columns Product, Qty, Price, Total and the rows Pencil 10 0.50, Folder 4 2.20, Stapler 2 7.90. Total must be a formula Qty times Price in each row.

Tested on: qwen3.8-27b, gemma-4-31b-it

Not recommended for: mistral-small-4

Delivers an Excel file with the three products and a Qty-times-Price formula in the Total column of each row.

Prompt	Test case	qwen3.8-27b	gemma-4-31b-it	mistral-small-4
Total with a formula	Four regions with a formula total in B6	10/10	10/10	7/10
Bar chart in the file	Three monthly costs with a bar chart in the file	10/10	10/10	8/10
A formula in every row	Three products with a Qty-times-Price formula per row	10/10	10/10	5/10

Tips

Name the format: "an Excel file".
Give the layout when position matters: "column A Region", "rows 2 to 5", "in B6".
Say "formula" when you want one.
Say "a bar chart in the file" when the chart should be inside the Excel file and not only a picture in the reply.
To change the result, ask for the change in plain words; the assistant builds on its last file, and each change arrives as a new card.

Limits

The old Excel format .xls is not produced, and neither are .doc and .ppt. Ask for Excel (.xlsx) or CSV.
Before a generated spreadsheet is delivered, the platform neutralizes formula injection: a cell that would run a command or fetch a URL on open, such as =HYPERLINK(...) or =WEBSERVICE(...), is turned into plain text. Ordinary formulas such as =SUM(B2:B5) are kept and still compute. A file that cannot be made safe is not delivered.
A generated file can be up to 25 MiB. A larger file is not delivered, and the assistant says so.
You can also get an Excel or CSV file from a reply that already contains a table: open the Download menu on the reply and select Download as Excel or Download as CSV. For a reply without a table you see the notice This message contains no table that could be exported.
The prompts above were checked on Myra-hosted models with one example each. A reworded prompt or another model can behave differently, so open the file before you send it on.

When something goes wrong

The assistant says it made the file, but there is no card. The notice No file was created. appears with a Create it now button. Use it.
The cells or the layout are wrong, or the numbers do not match. Name the cell or the layout again, for example "in B6" or "column A Region".
The file does not open, is empty, or you got a text file instead of the Excel file. Ask again and name the format: "an Excel file".
The chart is missing from the file. Ask for it by name: "add a bar chart of them in the file".
The notice says: This message contains no table that could be exported. The reply has no table. Ask the assistant to put the figures in a table first.