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Top Claude guides
The most-referenced playbooks for driving Excel, PowerPoint and your data with Claude. Most are downloadable PDF decks.
Claude Cowork Guide
Claude Cowork and Claude Code as one universal front end for analyst work.
Claude in Excel & PowerPoint - 26 tips
Power-user tips for driving Excel and PowerPoint with Claude.
Is it worth it? What works, what doesn't
An honest take on the limits - not a sales pitch.
MCP guide for Claude in Excel
Wire Claude to your databases and backends over MCP.
Claude - The Universal Agent
The thesis for Claude as the one agent behind everything.
What Anthropic shares about how it works
How its own teams use Claude, its research on who gets results, and its threat reports.
- Agentic Coding and Persistent Returns to Expertise: Anthropic's 400k Sessions, Summarized PDF
- Boris Cherny: Engineering, Product, Design, Data Science Are Melting Into Archetypes. Seeing the Same.
- Anthropic's Marketing Ops on Using Claude for Campaign Reporting - and How I Do the Same for Small Businesses. Notes on Skills. PDF
- Anthropic's Business Development Team Runs Inbound and Outbound With Claude Cowork. What the Post Actually Says. PDF
- AI coders are not just for developers. An Anthropic field marketer built his own weekly sales digest with Claude Code
- In analytics the SQL was always the easy part. Anthropic's data team put a figure on it PDF
- Sophisticated Attacks No Longer Require Sophisticated Attackers. Anthropic's September Threat Intelligence Report. PDF
- GLM-5.3 From Z.ai, Like Claude Mythos Preview, Can Build Cyber Exploits on Its Own, Anthropic Finds
- Staff at Anthropic Are Becoming Managers of AI Agent Teams. Anthropic's Report on How Work Changed Inside the Company PDF
Claude in Excel and PowerPoint
Worked builds first, then the guides.
- Claude in Excel Just One-Shotted an XGBoost Response Model - Train-Test Split, AUC, Full Workup
- Claude in Excel Built a 50-Chart India Macroeconomic Dashboard from RBI Data in Under an Hour
- Claude in Excel - Nifty50 Return Distribution Analysis (30 Days Forward), 2008 to 2026
- NIFTY50 - 30-Day Forward Return Analysis, Feb 2008 to 2026 (Claude in Excel with Python, Lambda)
- Power User Guide to Claude in Excel & PowerPoint - 26 Working Tips
- Claude in Excel & PowerPoint - Is It Worth It? What Works and What Doesn't PDF
- Python in Excel - Claude vs xlwings Lite? Who Wins?
- Claude in Excel + MCP + xlwings Lite + Claude Code: Pull Data, Build a Model, Validate It
Live data into Excel
Databases and quant metrics pulled into a sheet over MCP.
- FRED, 845,000 US Economic Series - Your AI Can Pull Any of Them Directly. No MCP, No Plugin, No Install.
- MCP Guide for Claude in Excel - and Any MCP Client PDF
- QREP in Excel: 81 Risk and Return Metrics Inside Your Sheet Through Claude in Excel
- Pull Your Quant Numbers Directly with Claude / ChatGPT in Excel (with MCP)
- Talk to Your Database from Excel - Postgres, DuckDB - via Claude in Excel with MCP
- Talk to Your Database from Excel via Claude & MCP - Part 2
- Claude in Excel with MCP Connector - Talk to Your Backends from Inside Excel
- Connect Excel to a Database with Tens of Millions of Rows? Tigzig Has 15+ Apps and Guides
Ask your AI
Point your AI at the data and let it find what it needs.
- Tigzig is built AI-agent first. 300+ assets, and the fastest way in is to ask your AI
- Point your agent at api.tigzig.com and it works out which dataset it needs
- Have your AI analyze the cricket data: one pasted instruction
- Technical analysis on any ticker without visiting the site
- Four routes into QuantStats, depending on what your AI can do
- Have your agent typeset a document: Markdown to PDF over MCP
- An AI agent inside the TREMOR macro dashboard reads the charts for you
- TREMOR's AI Chart Analysis Now Runs on Claude Sonnet 5.5: About 350 Macro and Credit Charts, Read with the News Behind Them
Claude and Claude Code
Claude beyond Excel: files, databases, code and reports.
- AI Is Not Just Chat: Cowork Apps Are Where the Action Happens
- Jamie Dimon Uses Claude Code to Generate Dashboards. Are You? You Need an AI Worker or AI Coder, Not an AI Chatter.
- Claude Cowork Guide PDF
- Claude Cowork Runs a Real Python Sandbox. I Put 37 Million Rows of Mutual Fund NAV Data Through It.
- Claude - The Universal Agent PDF
- Claude Code: Top 10 Tips from Boris Cherny
- Claude Code Was Getting Dumber. Stopped It Auto-Spawning Sub-Agents. Performance Came Back
MCP servers and APIs
Connect Claude to our data. Most servers are open source.
- Database MCP - query Postgres or DuckDB from inside Excel
- Tremor - macro, credit and insurance data (330+ indicators)
- QRep - compare securities on returns, risk and drawdowns (QuantStats behind it)
- Yahoo Finance - prices and fundamentals
- Technical analysis - a charted report on any ticker
- Markdown to PDF - have your agent typeset a document
- Mutual Fund NAV, India (AMFI) - API only, no MCP
- Vigil - India corporate red flags - API only, no MCP
- All servers, endpoints and setup -> MCP + API hub
ChatGPT Work and Google Antigravity
The same approach works with other AI workers.
Example files
Spreadsheets built with Claude in Excel.
- S&P 500 - 30-day forward-return scenario analysis
- Nifty50 - 30-day forward-return analysis
- Nifty50 - return distribution analysis
- XGBoost response model - one-shot build in the sheet
- India macro dashboard - 50 charts from RBI data
- Claude in Excel connected to a database - live data into charts and a table
- Folder: all analyses and dashboards built with Claude in Excel
Official docs
Anthropic setup guides and product pages.
- Claude for Excel - official setup and help
- Claude for Excel - product page
- Claude for PowerPoint - official help
- Work across Microsoft 365 - Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Outlook
- Claude Cowork - product page
- Getting started with Claude Cowork - best practices
- Advancing Claude for Excel and PowerPoint
- Best practices for Claude in Excel and PowerPoint - webinar
- Anthropic research - agentic coding and expertise
FAQ
Short answers. Each one points to a guide or resource if you want to go deeper.
What can connect to Claude, and what cannot?
Claude in Excel connects to MCP servers only, through the MCP connector. Claude Cowork can use an MCP server and can also call an API endpoint directly, because it can reach the internet. So Cowork opens up the whole API hub, not just the MCP ones. See how to connect →
Is Claude in Excel free?
Claude for Excel is an Anthropic add-in and needs a paid Claude plan (Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise). Everything on this site - the guides, tools, data APIs and MCP servers - is free. Official setup →
How do I connect Claude in Excel to my own database?
Point Claude at an MCP server that fronts your database. The step-by-step is in the MCP guide, and the Database MCP is open source so you can host your own. MCP guide for Claude in Excel →
How do I deploy my own MCP server?
An MCP server is just an endpoint you host. Mine are open source - clone one, deploy it, and point Claude at your URL. That way nothing routes through a third party. Browse the servers and code →
Claude in Excel or Python in Excel (xlwings Lite) - which one?
Claude in Excel is best when you want the AI to drive the sheet. Python in Excel (xlwings Lite) is best when you want to write the Python yourself. They are different tools for different moods; the comparison post lays it out. Claude vs xlwings Lite →
Does it work in PowerPoint too?
Yes. Claude for PowerPoint builds and edits slides in your template, and it can carry results from Excel into a deck. The 26-tips guide covers both. Excel and PowerPoint - 26 tips →
Security and all the apps
The security side of running AI-coded apps, and the full app directory.