Already running Seafile?

Macro workbooks open and save inside Seafile.

Seafile speaks WOPI — the same protocol it uses for Office Online Server. SumOffice answers that protocol, so the editor is a setting on the Seafile side, not a patch to it. Below is the setup we ran on 22 September 2026 and the numbers we measured on the way.

What was measured

Step 1 — start the editors

Same compose as for any WOPI host: two editors behind one address, a small service that merges their discovery into one document.

mkdir sumoffice-seafile && cd sumoffice-seafile
git clone https://github.com/SumOfficeApp/sumoffice-docker && cd sumoffice-docker/nextcloud   # the same compose serves Seafile
cp env.example .env    # PUBLIC_URL=https://office.example.com  — the address your people reach the editor at
docker compose up -d
curl -s $PUBLIC_URL/hosting/discovery | head -c 300   # the WOPI discovery Seafile will read

Step 2 — point Seafile at them

In seahub_settings.py:

ENABLE_OFFICE_WEB_APP = True
OFFICE_WEB_APP_BASE_URL = 'https://office.example.com/hosting/discovery'
OFFICE_WEB_APP_FILE_EXTENSION = ('xls', 'xlsx', 'xlsm', 'xlsb', 'ods', 'doc', 'docx', 'docm')
ENABLE_OFFICE_WEB_APP_EDIT = True
OFFICE_WEB_APP_EDIT_FILE_EXTENSION = ('xlsx', 'xlsm', 'xlsb', 'docx')

The last line is what makes the editor open a file for editing rather than viewing, so list every extension your people edit.

Step 3 — open a workbook

• Click any .xlsx or .xlsm in a library. The editor opens in the Seafile window; the first document takes a few seconds while its process starts.
• Edit and save: the file goes back through WOPI and Seafile keeps the previous revision in the file history.
• Download it and open it in Excel: the VBA project and the formulas are the ones you put there.

Two deployment notes. The editor runs in a frame on a different host than Seafile, so put both behind HTTPS — on plain http a browser drops the editor's session cookie unless both sides share one site. And Seafile caches the discovery document: after you change the editor address, restart memcached.

Scope today

• .xlsx / .xlsm / .xlsb and .docx are edited and saved back natively; .ods / .odt open by import and save as .xlsx / .docx.
• Macros and Power Query travel with the file untouched; supported VBA runs in SumSheet without Excel, and what is not supported is named before the file changes rather than dropped.
• One editor per document at a time: a second person opens it read-only.
• Presentations: SumPoint, December 2026.
• Macro workbooks (.xlsm, .xlsb) need one more setup step on the Seafile side than .xlsx does. We are going through it with the Seafile team; ask us and we will send the current note.

Before you move a department, run its workbooks through Check my Excel file: it names every macro, every function and every data source the engine knows or does not know, in seconds, without running anything.