New Update New Excel features added by Microsoft

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Excel for the web
  • Sheet protection
  • “PivotTable Connections” in slicer settings pane
  • Semi-select for links creation

Excel for Windows
  • Data from Picture (Insider Beta)
  • Automatic alt text suggestions on charts and PivotCharts (Current Channel & Monthly Enterprise Channel)

Excel for Mac
  • Automatic alt text suggestions on charts and PivotCharts
  • Import from local text, CSV, and XLSX files with data preview
 
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Excel for the web
  • Search for fields in PivotTable field List

Excel for Windows
  • Control automatic data conversions (Insiders Beta)
  • Natural Language Query improvements (Current Channel & Monthly Enterprise Channel)

Excel for Mac
  • Natural Language Query improvements
  • Resizable Conditional Formatting dialog (Insiders Beta)
 

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Microsoft has confirmed that it is rolling out “@mentions” for its spreadsheet software. Users of Microsoft Excel workbooks will soon have the ability to tag colleagues or team members.

In the entry on the official Microsoft 365 roadmap, the company notes that @mentions can be used to "create, assign and track tasks within your workbook." The entry indicates the feature has a General Availability (GA) date of October 2022. However, the feature has already been added to the "rolling out" cycle. This means some users who have updated their Microsoft Office suite may already be able to use the feature to tag people.

It is important to note that only the desktop iteration of Microsoft Excel will get the feature for now. However, the feature will be rolled out to users across the world.

Microsoft Excel to get mentions to tag team members and assign tasks
 

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Microsoft has announced a new function for Excel, thus addressing a popular request to let users insert images directly into cells. The IMAGE function is now available in preview versions of Excel on Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android.

Inserting images into cells instead of floating on top unlocks many new scenarios, such as tracking inventories, creating employee dashboards, or building games and brackets. In addition to mere image insertion, the IMAGE function supports additional properties for better customization and accessibility. You can add alt text and specify size, width, and height.
 

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What's New in Excel (August 2022)​

Excel for the web
  • New Excel Functions
  • Power Query Group operations
  • Improvements to the connected Power BI experience
  • Add and edit rich text formatting
  • Sort by color or icon from auto filter menu
  • Edit files with legacy data connections
  • Edit files with legacy Shared Workbook feature
  • Delete chart elements
  • Multiline formula bar
Excel for Windows
  • New Excel Functions
  • IMAGE function (Insiders Beta)
  • Improvements to the connected Power BI experience (Insiders Beta)
  • Show Changes (Insiders CC Preview)
Excel for Mac
  • New Excel Functions
  • IMAGE function (Insiders Beta)
  • Show Changes (Insiders CC Preview)
Android
  • New Excel Functions
  • IMAGE function (Insiders Beta)
iOS
  • New Excel Functions
  • IMAGE function (Insiders Beta)
 

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Microsoft appears to be in a mood to make Office Scripts support for Excel more accessible. A few months ago, it added the ability for the team members of a SharePoint site to easily collaborate, view, and run team-owned scripts on their Excel workbooks. However, Office Scripts, an automation feature-set, is currently limited to Excel for the web. This will change next month, as Microsoft promises to bring it to more platforms, namely Mac and Windows.

According to Microsoft 365 Roadmap page, Excel users on Mac and Windows will be able to automate their repetitive spreadsheet tasks come October. Users will be able to create, edit, and run Office Scripts in Excel for Windows and Mac using the Code Editor and All Scripts taskpane, exactly like Excel for the web.

Office Scripts for Excel
The ability to create, edit, and run Office Scripts in Excel will be very useful, especially in workplaces. You can easily automate your day-to-day tasks, which means you do not have to worry about forgetting steps. However, you have to wait patiently until October to use it on Excel for Mac or Windows. You can learn how Office Scripts work on Excel for the web here.

According to the roadmap page, the automation feature-set will be available as a preview first in October. Microsoft also promises general availability in the same month. Although not confirmed, a preview of the automation feature-set will likely be available for Office Insiders early next month. And it may have a broader rollout in the middle or late October. Worse, Microsoft could also postpone it as well.
 

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Excel for the web
  • Check performance
  • Sharing a section of Excel workbook
  • Dynamic array support in charts

Excel for Windows
  • Modern comments
  • Dynamic array support in charts (Insiders Beta)

Excel for Mac
  • Shape data with Power Query Editor (Insiders Preview)
  • Manage your storage accounts (Insiders Preview)
 

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Excel for the web:
  • Quickly Find the Command you need

Excel for Windows:
  • Automate Tasks with Office Scripts (Insiders Beta)
  • Navigation Pane
  • Quickly Find the Command you need
  • New DAX Functions in Excel Data Models and Power Pivot (Insiders Beta)
  • New Paste Options when using keyboard shortcuts (Insiders Beta)

Excel for Mac:
  • Automate Tasks with Office Scripts (Insiders)
 

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Excel for the web:
  • Chart Data Foils

Excel for Windows:
  • Show Changes #FIA
  • Automate Tasks with Office Scripts

Excel for Mac:
  • Show Changes #FIA
  • Automate Tasks with Office Scripts

iOS:
  • Get Fast and Fluent for Office on iPhone (Insiders)

 

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Welcome to the December 2022 update. We are excited to announce the release of Formula Suggestions and Formula by Example for Excel web users - a couple exciting capabilities designed to help save you time and learn more about Excel formulas as you use them. Also for web users are suggested links, IMAGE function, and a new search bar in the queries pane. For Windows users, a new keyboard shortcut is available to open the Power Query editor, and Insiders users on Windows can now get data from dynamic arrays and create nested Power Query data types to better organize your data.
Excel for the web:
  • Formula Suggestions
  • Formula by Example
  • Suggested Links
  • Add search bar in queries pane
  • IMAGE Function

Excel for Windows:
  • Add keyboard shortcut to open the Power Query editor #FIA
  • Create nested Power Query data types (Insiders) #FIA
  • Add Get Data from Dynamic Arrays (Insiders) #FIA
  • IMAGE Function

Excel for Mac:
  • IMAGE Function
 

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Microsoft has rolled out several updates over the last month aimed at improving at fixing various features and issues. Of particular note are updates to Microsoft Excel’s famous formulas feature, which will make them easier to use and more powerful to boot. The updates have also addressed issues relating to broken links and functionality relating to adding images to spreadsheets.

These updates will be especially useful for web users, who include all Microsoft 365 (previously known as Office 365) users, even those without access to the full desktop client. Some updates will also be available for Windows and macOS client users.
 

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The Automate tab is growing beyond your web browser and onto your desktop! Starting today, the Automate tab is now available for all eligible users in Excel for Windows and Mac. Previously, this tab was only available in Excel on the web.

With this new tab, create and modify scripts that automate your repetitive tasks using Office Scripts. Enhance your workbook by connecting popular applications like Microsoft Teams or SharePoint to build workflows with Power Automate. Combine these productivity technologies to have Power Automate schedule your Office Script. This tab represents the first stage of uniting automation solutions across platforms. We’re eager to hear your feedback!

 

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Welcome to the January 2023 update. This month we are excited to announce the release of PivotTable show details to Excel for the web and the ability to automate your tasks with the Power Automate tab in Excel for Windows and Mac. For Insiders users on Windows and Mac, you can try recording your worksheet actions using Office Scripts and checking your formula with the value preview tooltip.

Curious to see how we at Excel utilize and implement your feedback? You can now see which features are a direct result of your feedback as they'll be marked with the Feedback In Action tile #FIA.

Excel for the web:
  • PivotTable show details #FIA

Excel for Windows:
  • Automate your tasks with the Power Automate tab
  • Record worksheet actions using Office Scripts (Insiders)
  • Check your formula with value preview tooltips (Insiders)

Excel for Mac:
  • Automate your tasks with the Power Automate tab
  • Record worksheet actions using Office Scripts (Insiders)
  • Check your formula with value preview tooltips (Insiders)
PivotTable show details

View the source data for a PivotTable value cell, now in Excel for the web. Double-click or right-click and choose Show Details from a value cell in your PivotTable to create a new sheet with the detailed rows for that cell. There is also a new button to activate the same functionality from the PivotTable tab of the ribbon.

Show Details is useful to help you understand how the values in your PivotTable were calculated. For example, if you see an unexpected value in your PivotTable, you can use Show Details to confirm whether the source data used to calculate that value is as expected or if there is an issue with the underlying data.


 

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Welcome to the February 2023 update. This month we are bringing the ability to manually sort row and column values in PivotTables to users of Excel for the web. For Insiders, those using Excel for Windows can check out automatic recalculation optimization and blocking untrusted XLL add-ins; and those using Excel for Mac, Power Query Editor to import data from SQL Server databases - as well as from additional sources such as SharePoint, local files, OData, and many others.

Curious to see how we at Excel utilize and implement your feedback? You can now see which features are a direct result of your feedback as they'll be marked with the Feedback In Action tile #FIA.


Excel for the web:
  • PivotTables: Manual sort (drag) of rows and column values

Excel for Windows:
  • Automatic Recalculation Optimization (Insiders)
  • Block untrusted XLL Add-Ins (Insiders)

Excel for Mac:
  • Power Query Editor
  • Import Data from Additional Sources
  • Import Data from SQL Server Databases (Insiders) #FIA
  • Automatic Recalculation Optimization (Insiders)
 

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Welcome to the March 2023 update. This month, we are excited to announce several new features across web, Windows, and Mac. For web users, speed up large workbooks with Check Performance, insert and edit formulas with Formula Argument Assistance, and enhance your query organization with Drag & Drop in Queries Pane. Block untrusted XLL Add-Ins has launched to all Windows users, while Assign a Task with @mentions is now available for Windows and Mac users.


Excel for the web:

Excel for Windows:

Excel for Mac
 

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Advanced Formula Environment is becoming Excel Labs, a Microsoft Garage Project!​


Experimentation is key to unlocking innovation in any field. It’s how we learn and grow, and it’s what helps us continue to create features that help you do more.

So today, we are thrilled to announce our continued investment in experimentation through the release of Excel Labs, a Microsoft Garage project. Excel Labs is an add-in that allows us to release experimental ideas for you to try, and to give us feedback that helps us evolve Excel to be most useful for you.

The Microsoft Garage is Microsoft’s official outlet for experimental projects across the company so that teams may receive early feedback from customers and better determine product market fit. With Excel Labs, in alignment with the Garage’s mission, expect to find very early-stage ideas that we are thinking about and wanting to evaluate with our customers. While some of these ideas may never make it to the Excel product, we believe that having this avenue to get your feedback will be crucial to creating more exciting features that transform what’s possible in Excel.

The first two experimental ideas to be released as part of Excel Labs are:
  • Advanced formula environment​

This advanced editor for complex formulas was previously released as a separate Garage project, the Advanced Formula Environment add-in. But with the desire to experiment across a wide variety of features, we’re upgrading the AFE and rolling all of its functionality into Excel Labs, so you won’t need multiple add-ins installed.

  • LABS.GENERATIVEAI custom function​

As you saw last month with the announcement of Microsoft 365 Copilot, we see so much potential in the power of generative AI. So, with this experimental add-in, you can test the benefits of generative AI directly from the Excel grid using the LABS.GENERATIVEAI custom function. This function allows you to send prompts from the Excel grid to a generative AI model and then return the results from the model back to your worksheet. Please note that this is not part of M365 Copilot but rather a place for you to play and experiment with generative AI today within the Garage framework.
 

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Welcome to the April 2023 update. This month, in Excel for web, Chart Task Pane is now generally available along with hyperlinks in comments and performance improvements related to conditional formatting (CF) - CF performance improvements also available in Excel for Windows and Mac. For Insiders, the Quick Access Toolbar is now shown by default in Excel for Windows.

A couple new sets of Excel templates, Retirement and FIRE estimators and Essential Tips for conditional formatting, are now available for everyone to try. Additionally, check out this Introduction to the Data Science Processwatch the video >


Excel for web:
  • Chart Task Pane #FIA
  • Hyperlink in Comments
  • Speed Up Filtering when Cells contain Unique or Duplicate Conditional Formatting Rules
  • Reducing Unwanted Fragmenting of Conditional Formatting Rules

Excel for Windows:
  • Quick Access Toolbar (Insiders) #FIA
  • Reducing Unwanted Fragmenting of Conditional Formatting Rules (Current Channel)

Excel for Mac:
  • Reducing Unwanted Fragmenting of Conditional Formatting Rules
 

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Welcome to the May 2023 update. This month, we are excited to announce several new features across web, Windows, and Mac. The option to directly share a link to a table context menu is now generally available for web users, as well as Immersive Reader which lets you customize your reading experience. Enable proper date support and implicit measure support are both available for web and Windows users. Narrator enhancements, available for Windows users, provide a better audio experience for Excel users. And formula value preview tooltip is available for both Windows and Mac users.

Many of these features are the result of your feedback. THANK YOU! Your continued Feedback in Action #FIA helps make Excel better for everyone.


Excel for web:
  1. Add Option to Share Table Context Menu #FIA
  2. Enable Proper Date Support for PBI PivotTables #FIA
  3. Implicit Measures Support for PBI PivotTables #FIA
  4. Immersive Reader Read more >

Excel for Windows:
  1. Narrator Enhancements (Insider Preview) Read more >
  2. Enable Proper Date Support for PBI PivotTables (CC) #FIA
  3. Implicit Measures Support for PBI PivotTables (CC) #FIA
  4. Check your Formula with Value Preview Tooltip (CC) Read more >

Excel for Mac:
  1. Check your Formula with Value Preview Tooltip
 

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Welcome to the June 2023 update. We celebrated Pride this month, read more on how to add a touch of Pride to your Excel here.

This month we also bring you Formula Suggestions and Formula by Example for Excel web users. Use Image and Data Types in PivotTables are now available for Windows and Mac Insider users, and Generate an Accessible PDF is available to all Mac users.

Many of these features are the result of your feedback. THANK YOU! Your continued Feedback in Action (#FIA) helps make Excel better for everyone.


Excel for web:
  1. Formula Suggestions - Read more here >
  2. Formula by Example - Read more here >
  3. Support Chart Formatting via Selection & Ribbon Buttons
  4. Move Chart Elements within Chart Player
  5. Name Manager #FIA

Excel for Windows:
  1. Office Scripts (Current Channel and Monthly Enterprise Channel) Read more >
  2. Get data from Dynamic Arrays (Current Channel) #FIA
  3. Rapid Refresh (Current Channel) #FIA
  4. Guided Reapply (Current Channel)
  5. Use Image and Data Types in PivotTables (Insiders) Read more >
  6. Data Validation Dropdown List Autocomplete (Current Channel) Read more here >
  7. Paste Values directly into your workbook using a Keyboard Shortcut (Current Channel) Read more here >

Excel for Mac:
  1. Generate an Accessible PDF #FIA
  2. Enhanced Search Experience #FIA Read more here >
  3. Use Image and Data Types in PivotTables (Insiders) Read more >
 

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Welcome to the July 2023 update. Check out this new Excel add-in that will supercharge the EVE online gaming experience here >.

This month, we are excited to share the release of Insert Pictures into Cells and Set Default Theme for Windows and Mac Insider users. Mac Insider users can also Automatically Crop Pictures. Furthermore, Excel for web users can now Format Individual Data Points in your Charts.

The second release of the year for our Enterprise users in the Semi-Annual Channel is also available now – catch up on these feature releases here >.

Many of these features are the result of your feedback. THANK YOU! Your continued Feedback in Action (#FIA) helps make Excel better for everyone.


Excel for web:
  1. Format Individual Data Points in your Chart via Home Ribbon Controls

Excel for Windows:
  1. Share a Section of a Workbook (Current Channel) Read more
  2. Copy Values Quickly from the Status Bar (Monthly Enterprise Channel) #FIA Read more here or watch this video from one of our Excel MVP's.
  3. Insert Pictures in Cells (Insiders) #FIA Read more hereor watch this Youtube instructional video from one of our Excel MVP's Leila Gharan
  4. Default Theme for Office (Insiders) Read more here

Excel for Mac:
  1. Automatically Crop Pictures (Insiders) Read more here
  2. Insert Pictures in Cells (Insiders) #FIA Read more here
  3. New Default Theme for Office (Insiders) Read more here

Android
  1. Insert Photos from Android Phone (Insiders) Read more here
  2. New Default Theme for Office (Insiders) Read more here
 

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