Copilot for Your Staff · Lesson 6 of 7

Word, Excel and PowerPoint from your own files

20 minutes. Start from a file you already trust, not a blank page. Then check every number.

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The best Copilot drafts don't come from Copilot's imagination. They come from your own documents: last year's proposal, the price sheet, the job notes. Point Copilot at a file you trust, and the draft starts from your facts instead of the internet's.

This lesson covers one useful move in each app. Before you start, check one thing.

It depends on your plan and your company's settings. Microsoft shows a label in Word, Excel and PowerPoint so you can tell. Some people without the paid license still get a basic Copilot in these apps with "standard access," which can slow down when the service is busy. Microsoft's Excel help lists a Copilot Chat-eligible business subscription as one way to get Copilot in Excel.

If you don't see Copilot at all, Microsoft says it may not be in your subscription, or your company may have turned it off. Ask your IT partner. Don't install anything to "fix" it.

Copilot works best with files saved in Microsoft 365, not on your desktop. Here's why, from Microsoft's own pages:

• With the paid license, Copilot reasons over work content in Microsoft 365: documents, sites and files you have permission to open. A file that lives only on your computer isn't part of that.
• The / file picker in Word, and "create from a file" in PowerPoint, choose from files Copilot can reach.
• Microsoft's Copilot FAQ for home subscriptions says Copilot in Excel needs AutoSave on, which means the file is saved to OneDrive. Microsoft's Excel tips page for current versions says Copilot runs with AutoSave on or off, so this is changing. Saving to OneDrive or SharePoint is the safe habit either way.

So: save a copy to OneDrive or your company's SharePoint before you ask Copilot for help.

Priya at Comfort Zone Heating & Cooling (our fictional company) needs a maintenance agreement letter for a new commercial customer. She has last year's letter to a different customer and the current price sheet.

Microsoft's steps:

• Open a blank document, or put your cursor where you want new text.
• Open Copilot in the bottom right corner and describe what you want.
• To use a specific file, type / and choose it.
• Select Generate.
• Review the draft, then keep, discard, regenerate or refine it.

Priya's prompt:

> Draft a one-page maintenance agreement cover letter to Riverside Dental for two rooftop units, twice-yearly service. Friendly and professional. Use the structure of /Maintenance Letter Valley Bakery 2025 and the prices in /Commercial Price Sheet Oct 2026. Write [CHECK] anywhere you need a fact that isn't in those files.

Then she checks it the way Microsoft's Word help asks: facts, numbers, names, policy statements. Microsoft's words: "Review and verify details." The letter goes out under Priya's name, so Priya owns every line.

Select the Copilot icon in the lower right of Excel. Microsoft's help describes three ways it can work: one that edits the workbook for you, one that shows a plan first for you to review, and one that only chats about your data without changing anything.

Start with the one that only chats. You get the analysis without touching the numbers.

Good first questions:

• "Which five customers had the most service calls this year? Show a table."
• "Show total revenue by month as a chart."
• "Are there any duplicate invoice numbers in this sheet?"

Microsoft's Excel tips: be specific, and name the columns or ranges you want Copilot to use. "Sum the Amount column by Customer" beats "add it up."

Two cautions from Microsoft's Excel help, worth reading twice:

• Copilot makes direct changes to your workbook when you let it edit. You can undo, or go back to an earlier version.
• When you save Copilot's changes, anyone with access to the file can see them, including people editing it with you at the same time.

So for anything that matters (payroll, invoices, the budget), work on a copy, and have a second person check any total before it's used.

Gina needs five slides for a home show booth, and the content already exists in a Word document of service descriptions.

Select the Copilot icon in PowerPoint (Microsoft's help shows it in the bottom right) and ask it to create a presentation. You can describe it in a prompt, or ask Copilot to build it from a Word document. Microsoft's notes on building from a file:

• It works best with Word documents smaller than 24 MB.
• You need access to, and permission to use, the file.
• Copilot will try to bring in images from the Word document.

Then edit. Microsoft says the slides are AI-generated content that should be reviewed and edited by a person. Check every claim, every price and every photo. A slide that says "24/7 emergency service" had better be true.

Before any Copilot-made document leaves your hands:

• Every number traced back to its source file.
• Every name spelled right, every date right.
• Every promise (warranty, response time, price) approved by the person who can make it.
• No [CHECK] left anywhere.

• Save one real Word document, one spreadsheet and one source document to OneDrive or SharePoint.
• In Word, draft something real using / to reference a file. Check it with the four points above.
• In Excel, ask two questions about real data in the chat-only way. Check one answer by hand.
• If you have time, build three slides in PowerPoint from a Word document.
• Add your best prompt from each app to the Copilot Prompt Card template.

Check it worked

• Your working files are saved in OneDrive or SharePoint.
• You made one Word draft from your own files and checked every fact.
• You got two Excel answers without changing the workbook, and checked one by hand.
• Your prompt card has at least one prompt for Word and one for Excel.

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Next: put it all together, on your own work, and find out if it's worth it.

→ Lesson 7: Capstone: five tasks, one list, two weeks

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