Publish Excel Add-in via FTP

Question

I'm playing with Excel Add-ins, and I'm not a specialist, so having read the documentation, I still find it complicated to publish and install it. Basically, all I did was the very basic Excel Add-in described in the documentation and now I'm trying to figure out how to install it in Excel.

I see everywhere that this is vrey simple, all you have to do is to upload the XML manisfest file, etc. but using Visual Studio, I chose publish via FTP and I get 3 folders in my website:

• Content
• Functions
• Scripts

These are full of js scripts, but I don't see the manifest file nor the home.css, Home.js and Home.html

Isn't it possible to just upload the files with Filezilla to a folder? Which files?

If so, then how do I install the addin in Excel?

Thank you so much for helping!

Answer 1

The manifest goes to a different place than the files in the web application part of the add-in. Please see this article and the links in it for the details of how to publish the web application and deploy the manifest: Deploy and Publish your Office Add-in.

UPDATE 1/10/19: Some additional information in light of the OP's comments:

Please start with this article: Office Add-ins to get an overview. You will see that there are two main parts to an Office Web Add-in: (1) The manifest and (2) a web application.

The manifest can be sideloaded or deployed using several methods. For more information on publishing options, see this node of the documentation: Publish.

The web application can be published/hosted using any method or platform that you want. We don't give instructions for most methods because this information is already available on the web. However, this article, Host an Office Add-in on Microsoft Azure, explains how to do it on Azure. I recommend that you try that method of hosting first. Note that in step 6, you edit the manifest to point to the URL of your web app. When you feel familiar with the distinction between hosting the web app and deploying the manifest, you can try an alternate method of hosting the web app. No matter which method you choose, you will edit the manifest in the same way.