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Microsoft Word add-in

Public preview

Run Teachers.guide modules inside Microsoft Word on Windows, Mac and the web – read your selection, generate, then insert at the cursor or replace the selected text.

For teachers

Three steps, about two minutes. No Microsoft account or IT help needed.

1. Download the manifest

This single small file is all Word needs – it tells Word where to load Teachers.guide from.

2. Deploy to Word

The steps differ by platform – Word for Mac has no upload button, so use the folder method.

Word for Mac

In Finder press ⌘⇧G and paste this path:
~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Documents/wefCreate the wef folder if it is not already there.
Copy teachers-guide-word.manifest.xml into that folder.
Quit Word completely (⌘Q) and reopen it.
Go to Insert → My Add-ins → Developer Add-ins and choose Teachers.guide. The button then appears on the Home ribbon.

There is no “Upload My Add-in” link in Word for Mac, and “Manage My Add-ins” only opens the online store – the folder above is the supported route.

Word on the web (office.com)

Open any document, then Home → Add-ins → More Add-ins.
Click the MY ADD-INS tab at the top-left (not STORE).
Click Upload My Add-in at the top-right of that list.
Select the downloaded manifest file.
The Teachers.guide button appears on the Home ribbon.

Word for Windows

Put the manifest in a shared network folder, e.g. \\server\addins.
In Word: File → Options → Trust Center → Trust Center Settings → Trusted Add-in Catalogs; add that folder's URL, tick Show in Menu, then restart Word.
Insert → My Add-ins → Shared Folder, pick Teachers.guide.
Alternatively use the Word on the web steps above with the same account.

Blocked entirely? Sideloading is switched off on many school-managed Microsoft 365 accounts. Ask your IT admin to deploy it centrally using the manifest URL in the IT admin section below.

3. Connect your account

In Word, click Teachers.guide on the Home ribbon and sign in with your school code. If your school does not use codes, generate a one-off connect token here and paste it into the task pane.

What you can do

Use the selected text – or the whole document – as the input.
Run any Teachers.guide module available to your account.
Insert the result at the cursor, replace the selection, or copy it.
Reopen recent results from the task pane.

AI can occasionally make mistakes – always check outputs before sharing with pupils.

For IT admins

School-wide rollout, self-hosting and the information you need to review the add-in.

School-wide deployment

Sign in to admin.microsoft.com as a Global or Exchange admin.
Go to Settings → Integrated apps → Upload custom apps.
Choose Office Add-in, then Provide link to manifest file.
Paste https://teachers.guide/office-addin/manifest.xml.
Assign to Everyone, a group, or named staff, then accept the permission summary.
Rollout completes within 24 hours; staff see the button automatically.

That manifest URL is all you need – there is nothing else to install or host.

Self-hosting the bundle

Optional – only if you want to serve the static task pane from your own infrastructure instead of teachers.guide.

Hosting requirements

Serve the folder from https://teachers.guide/office-addin/ over HTTPS.
Allow CORS from https://*.officeapps.live.com and https://*.office.com.
Serve manifest.xml with content type application/xml or text/xml.
Keep the add-in GUID unchanged when you update files, or Word will treat it as a new add-in.

Build the bundle from source

bun run package:office-addin

Outputs dist/office-addin/ and dist/teachers-guide-word-addin.zip.

Updating the add-in

Keep the add-in GUID the same and increase <Version> in the manifest for every change, otherwise Word and centrally deployed clients keep serving the cached copy. Centrally deployed manifests are re-read from the URL periodically, so a hosted manifest is preferable to an uploaded file.

Permissions and data handling

Information for IT admins reviewing the add-in before deployment.

Requested permission: ReadWriteDocument – required to read the text you choose and to insert results back into the document.
What is sent: only the text you place in the task pane box – your current selection, or the document text you explicitly pull in with Use selection. Nothing is read or transmitted in the background, and other open documents are never accessed.
Where it is sent: the Teachers.guide backend on teachers.guide and its Supabase project, over HTTPS, then to the AI model provider for processing.
Retention: runs follow the same retention rules as the main platform. Recent results shown in the task pane are stored only on that device.
Do not paste pupil-identifying or special-category data – use anonymised identifiers such as “Pupil A”.
Authentication: staff sign in with their school code, or with a one-off connect token generated from this page. No Microsoft account data is collected.

Listing on Microsoft AppSource

Not required for schools to use the add-in – sideloading and central deployment both work without it. It only adds public discoverability in the Word store.

Create a Microsoft Partner Center account and complete company verification (3–5 working days).
Submit the add-in with the manifest, store artwork, listing text and a validator test account.
Supply the public privacy, terms and support URLs listed above.
Every manifest change re-triggers validation and needs a version bump.

Download submission pack (.md)

The pack contains every Partner Center field pre-written: identity and GUID, listing copy, artwork specs, validator testing instructions, the data-handling summary and a pre-submission checklist.