We are almost at the end of 2022, and Microsoft has been adding a plethora of features to Excel in a bid to enhance its user experience. And this month isn’t any different, Microsoft released a bunch of nifty features to Excel for the month of December. Here’s everything you need to know:
Excel for the web
Microsoft has incorporated a neat feature in Excel for web users, Formula suggestions. Essentially, after hitting the “=” sign in a cell or the formula bar, you’ll now get automatic suggestions for the best formula to use. This will be based on contextual insights from your data. At the moment, you’ll get suggestions for the following formulas: SUM, AVERAGE, COUNT, COUNTA, MIN, and MAX.
Next up is Formula by Example. This feature is designed to establish a pattern while users are performing manual and repetitive data entry in a column. In the event that Excel identifies one, it will suggest to the user to complete the entire column with a formula. Just like Flash Fill, but this time, its formulas being suggested not static text.
Moreover, users will now be able to correct broken links with the new Suggested Links feature. “Suggested Links allow for new cloud workbook storing for data that detects when an external link to a Cloud workbook is broken and suggests you a new location to fix the broken link,” says Microsoft. Suggested links is rolling out to Production at the moment.
Excel for web users will also be able to make queries easily with the newly added search bar in the queries pane. And finally, with the IMAGE function, users will be able to add images to cells from a source location together with the alternative text.
Thus making it easier to feature images in the worksheet instead of having them float at the top, what’s more, you can move, sort, filter as well as resize the images within the Excel table.
Excel for Windows
Microsoft has added a new shortcut for Excel for Windows that will allow them to open the Power Query Editor easily. That is: Press Alt + F12 (Win32).
Next up is the new capability to create nested Power Query data types that will allow users to arrange and manage their data better. Unfortunately, this feature is only rolling out to Insiders at the moment.
Furthermore, Microsoft has added support for Get Data from Table/Range. In turn, users can import data from Dynamic Arrays, thus allowing them to load them into Power Query and transform the data. At the moment this feature is rolling out to Windows Production. And finally, Excel for Windows is also getting the IMAGE function.
Excel for Mac
Excel for Mac now has a new shortcut that will help users to easily open the Power Query Editor. Simply press Option + F12. Likewise, Mac users will also be able to access the IMAGE function.
To get information on which features are available to you or find which version of Excel you’re on, you can visit the Excel Features Flyer site. That’s it for the month of December folks! Be sure to also check out last month’s post in case you missed it.
