In this lesson, you'll recognize what Claude does inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, move work between the apps with one Claude conversation, and decide when to do the work in Cowork versus inside the document.
Excel. Analyze data, write formulas, debug #REF! errors and circular references, run scenario tests without breaking the model, build a sheet from a template, cite back to specific cells. The strongest move: "Pull the actuals from the Q3 sheet, compare them to the Q3 plan in the same workbook, and write the variance commentary in column F next to each line item."
PowerPoint. Read your slide master, fonts, and color scheme, then build slides that match. Generate native, editable charts (not pasted images). Operate on whatever slide you have selected. The strongest move: "Take the analysis I just did in Excel and turn it into a three-slide deck for the QBR, using our deck template."
Word. Draft, revise, and reformat in place. Work with comments and tracked changes. Pull context from connected sources to ground the draft. The strongest move: "Draft the executive summary based on the body of this memo and the source data referenced in the appendix."
Outlook. Triage incoming mail with context from the rest of your work. Draft replies that reflect prior threads, calendar context, and recent decisions.
The cross-app move is where M365 plus Claude starts to feel different from working in any single app. You're not just working on one document โ you're carrying its context into the next one.
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A useful rule:
Most real work uses both. Claude builds the first draft of the deck; you open it in PowerPoint and refine it with Claude in the slide. Claude pulls the data into the model; you open it in Excel and ask Claude to investigate the outlier you spotted. The two surfaces hand off cleanly โ and the file is the file in both cases.
First, install the Claude add-in for the Microsoft 365 app you use most โ see Work across Excel, PowerPoint, and Word for setup and plan availability. Claude for Outlook is a separate beta with its own listing โ see Claude for Outlook.
Open one of the M365 apps with a real document you're working on this week. Try one move with Claude inside the app โ refine a paragraph, debug a formula, build a slide from a passage in a Word doc. The first time you see Claude operating on the document you're staring at, the difference from chat-then-paste lands.
You've now seen Cowork everywhere it shows up โ the desktop, the browser, and the documents themselves. Module 4 turns to the parts of using Cowork that matter once you're handing it real work: working safely, making sure the things you build behave, and sharing them with your team.