Quick Install

You can quickly try out Cellm in a single Excel session:

  1. Go to the Github Release page and download Cellm-AddIn64-packed.xll and appsettings.json. Put them in the same folder.

  2. Double-click on Cellm-AddIn64-packed.xll and click on “Enable this add-in for this session only” when Excel opens.

  3. Download and install Ollama. The first time Cellm will automatically instruct Ollama to download Gemma 2 2B the first time you call =PROMPT().

See the Install page for instructions on how install Cellm as proper Cellm extension.

Cellm requires Windows 10 or higher, Excel 2010 or higher (desktop app), and .NET 9.0 Runtime.

Usage

Sending a prompt to a model

Select a cell and type e.g. =PROMPT("What model are you and who made you?"). The default model will tell you that is called “Gemma” and made by Google DeepMind.

Processing text in cells

You can use cell references to dynamically change your prompts based on other data in your spreadsheet. For example, try to copy a news article into cell A1 and type in the formula of cell B1 =PROMPT(A1, "Extract all person names mentioned in the text").

Function Calling

You can use the built-in tools to analyse files on your disk. Fill out a folder path in cell A1 and type in cell A2 =PROMPT(A1, "Which pdf files do I have in my downloads folder?"). Gemma 2 2B does not support tool calling, so for this task you must use another model, e.g. OpenAI’s gpt-4o-mini.

Configuration

Use the Cellm tab in Excel’s ribbon menu to configure which AI model to use.

Cellm Ribbon

  • Model: Select which AI model to use (e.g., “openai/gpt-4o-mini”). The dropdown gives a couple of preset options. You can also type the model name directly in the drop-down text field to select another model.
  • Address: The API endpoint for your chosen provider (e.g., “https://api.openai.com/v1”)
  • API Key: Your authentication key for the selected provider

The other options in the Cellm tab are:

  • Cache: Enable/disable local caching of model responses to a fixed input. Useful when Excel triggers recalculation of many cells.
  • Functions: Enable/disable function calling.