Sample Prompts

Copy-paste these prompts into any MCP-compatible client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, etc.) to get started with ExcelPlusPlusMCP.

Create a new Excel workbook in a session called "quarterly-report". Add a sheet named "Q1" and write the following data starting at A1:

| Month | Revenue | Expenses | Profit |
|-------|---------|----------|--------|
| Jan   | 12000   | 8000     | 4000   |
| Feb   | 15000   | 9500     | 5500   |
| Mar   | 18000   | 11000    | 7000   |

Make the header row bold with a blue background.

Open the file at /data/sales-2025.xlsx in read-only mode. List all the sheets and tell me how many rows of data are in the first sheet.

In the current workbook, on a new sheet called "Inventory", write this 2D array starting at B2 with header styling on the first row:

[["SKU", "Product", "Qty", "Price"],
 ["SKU-001", "Widget A", 150, 9.99],
 ["SKU-002", "Widget B", 87, 14.50],
 ["SKU-003", "Widget C", 203, 7.25],
 ["SKU-004", "Widget D", 42, 29.99]]

Read cell F10 from the "Summary" sheet. Tell me the value, type, and whether it contains a formula.

Set cell D5 on the "Budget" sheet to the value 45000. Then read it back to confirm.

In the "Q1" sheet, add a formula in D2 that calculates Profit as Revenue minus Expenses (=B2-C2). Then copy that formula down to D3 and D4. Finally, recalculate the workbook and read back all profit values.

On the "Q1" sheet, add a "Total" row at A5:D5. Set formulas in B5, C5, and D5 to SUM the columns above. Make the Total row bold. Recalculate and read the totals.

Read the formula in cell E100. If it contains a VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP, explain what it's looking up and from where.

Apply formatting to A1:D1 on the "Q1" sheet: bold font, white text (#FFFFFF), dark blue fill (#1F4E79), center-aligned horizontally.

Format cells B2:B10 on the "Budget" sheet as currency with 0 decimal places. Format C2:C10 as percentages with 1 decimal place.

Set column A width to 20, column B to 15, and column C to 12. Set the height of row 1 to 30 points.

Merge cells A1:F1 on the "Report" sheet and write "Annual Report 2025" centered. Apply bold 18pt font.

On the "Q1" sheet, create a column chart using data from A1:C4. Use column A as categories. Position the chart at F1. Title it "Q1 Financials".

On the "Expenses" sheet, create a pie chart from A1:B5 showing the expense breakdown. Position it at D2.

List all charts on the "Dashboard" sheet. Remove the second chart (index 1).

Add a dropdown list validation to cells A2:A50 on the "Orders" sheet. The allowed values are: "Pending", "Processing", "Shipped", "Delivered", "Cancelled".

Add validation to cells D2:D100 on the "Budget" sheet requiring whole numbers between 0 and 1000000. Show an error message "Amount must be between 0 and 1,000,000" if violated.

Add date validation to column B on the "Events" sheet requiring dates between 2025-01-01 and 2025-12-31.

Remove all data validation from cells A1:A10 on the "Draft" sheet.

Add three new sheets named "Raw Data", "Analysis", and "Charts". Then rename "Raw Data" to "Source Data". List all sheets to confirm.

List all sheets in the current workbook with their row and column counts. Tell me which sheet has the most data.

Create a new Excel session for my "budget-workflow" agent with a 60-minute TTL.

Check the status of my current session. Tell me how many workbooks are open and when the session expires.

Close my current session and all its workbooks. Confirm the session is cleaned up.

Create a new workbook with a sheet called "P&L". Write the following data with header styling:

| Category       | Q1      | Q2      | Q3      | Q4      |
|----------------|---------|---------|---------|---------|
| Revenue        | 50000   | 62000   | 58000   | 71000   |
| COGS           | 20000   | 24800   | 23200   | 28400   |
| Gross Profit   | 30000   | 37200   | 34800   | 42600   |
| OpEx           | 15000   | 16000   | 15500   | 17000   |
| Net Profit     | 15000   | 21200   | 19300   | 25600   |

Add formulas so Gross Profit = Revenue - COGS and Net Profit = Gross Profit - OpEx for each quarter.
Format all numbers as currency.
Add a column chart from A1:E6 positioned at G2.
Save the file to /tmp/pnl-2025.xlsx.

Open /data/raw-contacts.xlsx. On the "Contacts" sheet:
1. Set column widths: A=25, B=30, C=15, D=20
2. Add a dropdown in column D with values: "Lead", "Qualified", "Customer", "Churned"
3. Format the header row with bold white text on a dark blue fill
4. Save the cleaned file to /data/contacts-cleaned.xlsx

Create a workbook with 4 sheets: "Summary", "Jan", "Feb", "Mar".
On each monthly sheet, write 10 rows of sample sales data with columns: Date, Product, Units, Unit Price, Total.
Add a formula in the "Summary" sheet that sums the Total column from each monthly sheet.
Create a line chart on the Summary sheet showing monthly totals.
Save to /tmp/quarterly-sales.xlsx.