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Introducing value tokens in Microsoft Excel

Gedion-Alemayehu's avatar
Gedion-Alemayehu
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Mar 28, 2025

Hey, Microsoft 365 Insiders! I’m Gedion Alemayehu, a Product Manager on the Excel team. I’m very excited to share a new update to the formula editing experience in Microsoft Excel for Windows: value tokens.

Introducing value tokens in Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel has continuously evolved to handle more than just plain text, numbers, and errors. For example, we’ve introduced the ability to put stocks, geography, currencies, and formatted number values, among other data types, in cells, allowing them to hold richer data and connected information.

However, these data types were not able to be shown in the formula bar in a cohesive way – until now! This enhancement provides a clear visual indication that a cell contains a data type or other richer formats. The addition of an icon next to the value further helps differentiate between data types in a spreadsheet.

How it works

  1. Open a new or existing Excel spreadsheet.
  2. Select a cell and enter a geography, currency, or another data type.
  3. Select Data > Data Types, select the data type you want (e.g., Currencies, Geography), and notice that a value token appears in the cell.

In the future, we plan to more deeply integrate value tokens into Excel’s formula editing experience. We’d love your feedback to make this happen!

Availability

Value tokens are available to Excel for Windows users running Version 2502 (Build 18623.20020) or later. They will be available in Excel for Mac, Excel for Android and iOS, and Excel for the web soon.

Feedback

We want to hear from you! To share your thoughts, either select Help > Feedback in Excel or go to the Feedback Portal, and mention value tokens in your response.

 

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Updated Mar 28, 2025
Version 1.0
excel

3 Comments

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  • wwpmoa's avatar
    wwpmoa
    Copper Contributor
    May 05, 2025

    Personal thoughts on this. Thanks for chance to submit feedback. I'd prefer the icon next to the letter A, B, C.  I'd prefer an indicator with italic icon or an icon in () when some, not all, cells in column are that data type. I'd prefer icons for formats like phone number, date, time, %, Text, and custom. I'd consider zip and SSN a "custom". I'd rename Geography as Places to represent named places on a map. Company (select link to vendor URL with place information for address and phone) would be useful. Geolocation (IP address) and Coordinates (longitude, latitude) would be useful. Health icons for ICD-10, CPT, and HCPCS would be useful. Thank you. 

  • SergeiBaklan's avatar
    SergeiBaklan
    MVP
    Mar 30, 2025

    Not sure I understood what to expect from "integrate value tokens into Excel’s formula editing experience", will see.

    In addition, it's worth to mention we may switch on/off te token within the cell by View -> Data Type Icons check box.

    By the way, what's the difference between token and icon in above context?

    • Gedion-Alemayehu's avatar
      Gedion-Alemayehu
      Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
      Apr 17, 2025

      Thank you for your question. The term "Value Token" refers to the entire experience of the green/grey "pill" that encompasses the data type which includes the icon, and the text. The option to toggle icons on or off does not apply to Value Tokens.