Sideload Excel Add-In on MacOS Sierra

Introduction

In a previous post we looked at the process of generating an Excel add-in and using mkcert to create private certification authority (CA) trusted by browsers. In this post, we continue the journey of developing office add-in by looking at the steps involved in side loading our add-in in an Excel host.

Prerequisites

The add-in how to guide for iPad and Mac sets out the following prerequisites:

• A Mac running OS X v10.10 "Yosemite" or later with Office for Mac installed.

• Excel for Mac version 15.19 (160206).

• The manifest .xml file for the add-in you want to test.

In this post, we will utilize the following:

• A Mac running macOS High Sierra v10.13.3

• Excel for Mac version 16.16.5 (181209)

• Manifest.xml for the Excel add-in that we created in the previous post

Steps to sideload our Excel add-in

• Open Terminal window and verify that wef folder exists on your computer by running the following command.cd /Users/${USER}/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Excel/Data/Documents/wef

• If a No such file or directory message is displayed, then run the following commands from the terminal to create the folder and navigate to the newly created folder mkdir /Users/${USER}/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Excel/Data/Documents/wef and cd /Users/${USER}/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Excel/Data/Documents/wef

• Copy manifest.xml file of your Excel add-in to the wef folder. If you followed the previous post on generating an office add-in, then your copy command will be similar to the following: cp ~/office-js/expense-updater/manifest.xml .

If you are testing more than one Excel add-in, rename the add-in manifest.xml file while copying to avoid overwriting a manifest file for another add-in. cp ~/office-js/expense-updater/manifest.xml ./expense-updater.xml

• Change directory to the root of your Excel add-in and start your add-in server cd ~/office-js/expense-updater && npm start

• Close the Excel application if it is already running. Make sure your completely quit the application.

• Open your Excel workbook

• Choose Insert from the menu

• Click on the drop-down arrow next to My Add-ins and select your Excel add-in.

• Your Excel add-in will now load and a callout will be displayed

• Click on the Got it button to dispose the callout.

• Click on your Excel add-in button to sideload the add-in.

Resources

• Sideload Office Add-ins on iPad and Mac for testing