AI Assistant

Chat with AI directly inside Excel — analyze tables, suggest formulas, auto-format/color, compare data, and more.

4 AI commands

Command	Purpose	When to use
AI Assistant	General chat — analyze, format, transform	Complex tasks needing table context.
AI Explain	Explain Excel formulas	Understand someone else's complex formula.
AI Grammarly	Fix spelling + grammar	Cell text needs proofreading.
AI Solver	Solve a problem from an image	OCR a math problem → AI solves it.

All default to Gemini (via the API key entered in Preferences). Switchable to OpenAI/Groq/Cerebras.

AI Assistant (chat)

DVD Addin → group AI Assistant → split-button AI Assistant.

Opens a chat window embedded in Excel.

How to use

1. Select a data range in Excel (the table to analyze).
2. In the chat window, type your request:
   • "Color cells yellow where price > 1,000,000."
   • "Format the Revenue column as Vietnamese currency."
   • "Find rows with quantity = 0 and delete them."
   • "Add a totals column for the 3 columns to the left."
   • "Compare sheet 1 and sheet 2, color cells red where they differ."
3. The AI responds with:
   • Explanation (text).
   • Action plan (JSON list of operations).
4. Click Apply — the addin executes the actions on Excel.

Action schema

The action plan returned by the AI follows this schema:

{
  "answer": "I'll color cells A1:A100 yellow where the value > 1000000.",
  "actions": [
    {
      "range": "A1:A100",
      "backgroundColor": "#FFFF00",
      "fontColor": "#000000",
      "bold": true,
      "numberFormat": "#,##0"
    },
    {
      "range": "B1",
      "value": "=SUM(A1:A100)"
    }
  ]
}

Each action can have these properties:

• range — target range.
• value — set value or formula (formula starts with =).
• bold, italic, underline — boolean.
• backgroundColor, fontColor — #RRGGBB.
• borders — true/false (all-around border).
• horizontalAlignment — left / center / right.
• numberFormat — Excel number format string.
• clear — formats / contents / all.

Attachments

Click the clip icon → attach an image (PNG, JPG, WebP) or PDF. The AI reads the file together with your table context to answer.

Chat history

Conversation history is kept in the session. Click Clear conversation to reset.

License gating

AI Assistant requires an active license (Activated or Trial).

AI Explain

DVD Addin → menu AI Assistant → AI Explain.

Select a single cell with a formula → click → AI returns:

• High-level: what the formula does.
• Component breakdown.
• Sample input → output examples.
• Simplification suggestions (if applicable).

Use case: understand inherited workbooks, decode 5-line nested VLOOKUP formulas.

AI Grammarly

DVD Addin → menu AI Assistant → AI Grammarly.

Select cells containing text → click → AI fixes:

• Spelling (Vietnamese + English).
• Grammar.
• Punctuation, capitalization.

Output: replaces text in cells, italicizing the corrected portion (so you can review).

AI Solver

DVD Addin → menu AI Assistant → AI Solver.

Click → opens a dialog to pick an image / PDF containing a math problem.

The addin sends the image + prompt "Solve this problem" to Gemini → AI returns a step-by-step solution → writes into the active Excel cell.

Use case: OCR + auto-solve for students or engineers.

Model + API key configuration

Open Preferences:

• Service: Gemini (default) / OpenAI / Groq / Cerebras.
• Model:
  • Gemini: gemini-2.5-flash (default, free tier).
  • Gemini Pro: gemini-2.5-pro (more accurate, paid).
  • OpenAI: gpt-4o-mini / gpt-4o.
  • Groq: llama-3.3-70b-versatile / mixtral-8x7b-32768.
• Temperature: 0.0 (deterministic) → 1.0 (creative). Use 0.5 for data-processing tasks.

API keys live in registry HKCU\Software\DVD\DVDAddin\API Keys.

Troubleshooting

"API key not found"

Open Preferences → AI → enter the key for the selected service.

"Quota exceeded" (Gemini free tier)

Gemini free tier limits 15 req/min and 1500/day for gemini-2.5-flash. Wait a minute or upgrade.

Response has wrong schema (can't apply)

The AI sometimes returns malformed JSON. Click Retry in the dialog, or rephrase your request more specifically.

Action plan affects the wrong range

• The AI referenced the wrong sheet (e.g. AI used "A1:A100" but you're on a different sheet).
• Before clicking Apply, make sure you're on the correct sheet.

Related

• Translate — translate text (different from AI Assistant analyze).
• Preferences → AI Models — configuration.