Ciphon
Excel add-in

Bring Ciphon
into your spreadsheets.

Extract, match, and preview source documents without leaving Excel.

Install

Download it, rename it, then double-click.

Ciphon for Excel Windows installer
Download
  1. Step 01

    Rename it to end in .cmd

    Right-click the downloaded file, choose Rename, and delete the underscore at the end so it reads install-windows.cmd. Click Yes if Windows asks about changing the extension.

  2. Step 02

    Double-click to run

    A small window opens and sets everything up. If “Windows protected your PC” appears, click More info → Run anyway — expected for a freshly downloaded file.

  3. Step 03

    Restart Excel

    Close Excel completely and reopen it. Ciphon appears on the Home tab — click it to open the panel and sign in.

Nothing on the Home tab? Almost always one of two things: the rename didn’t take, so the file still ends in _ rather than .cmd, or Excel wasn’t fully closed and reopened. Re-check both first.

Paste one line into Terminal, then restart Excel.

$ mkdir -p ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Excel/Data/Documents/wef && \
  curl -fsSL https://excel.ciphon.development.draftworx.com/manifest.xml \
       -o ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Excel/Data/Documents/wef/ciphon.xml
  1. Step 01

    Open Terminal

    Press ⌘ Space, type Terminal, and press Return.

  2. Step 02

    Paste and run

    Copy the command above, paste it into Terminal with ⌘ V, and press Return. If nothing prints, it worked.

  3. Step 03

    Restart Excel

    Quit Excel fully with ⌘ Q and reopen it. Ciphon appears on the Home tab — click it to open the panel and sign in.

Nothing on the Home tab? Open Excel at least once before running the command, then quit it fully with ⌘ Q — not just the red dot — and reopen it.

Before you start

Microsoft 365, or Excel 2019 or later. Excel 2016 and earlier can’t load the add-in.
Excel desktop, on Windows or Mac. The web and mobile versions aren’t supported.

Removing it

The same three steps — download, rename, then double-click.

Uninstaller Removes Ciphon from Excel
Download

Paste this into Terminal, then restart Excel.

$ rm ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Excel/Data/Documents/wef/ciphon.xml