As we wrap up 2023, we on the Excel team want to express our heartfelt gratitude to you all across our Excel community. We greatly appreciate each and every one of you for your continued contribution to the community, helping others learn more about Excel, and giving us feedback to make Excel even better.
2023 was filled with excitement for Excel, from Excel esports on ESPN8: The Ocho to the Excel Collegiate Challenge, the Excel World Championship, and more.
- Excel esports on ESPN8: The Ocho. For the second year in a row, Excel esports returned to ESPN8: The Ocho, joining an incredible lineup of "43 hours of unique and groundbreaking programming and sports." David Pierce / The Verge asks, "Can the next big thing in gaming be... spreadsheets" in his article "Excel’s esports revolution is coming back to ESPN this week."
- Excel Collegiate Challenge. Over 3,000 students from hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide participated in this year's Excel Collegiate Challenge. 50+ students representing ~30 universities and colleges from 10+ countries made it to the Finals in early December at the University of Arizona televised on ESPN and livestreamed on YouTube.
- Excel World Championship. On Saturday, December 9th, the Excel World Championship took over the HyperX esports arena in Las Vegas for the Finals of this year's Excel esports season. 16 of the world's top Excel experts came together to solve fun and challenging case questions, in Excel, in front of a packed house of excited fans, along with thousands of engaged viewers on ESPN, YouTube, and Twitch cheering for their favorite Excel legends!
Robert McMillan / Wall Street Journal captured how "The excitement is off the charts at the Olympics of competitive ‘spreadsheeting’" in "Inside the World Excel Championships (Yes, You Read That Right)." Will Pavia / The Times followed Andrew "The Annihilator" Ngai's "nearly denied victory" in "Glitch almost costs reigning champion in Microsoft Excel World Championship." Daisy Dumas / The Guardian detailed how Andrew won the event in "‘You didn’t just succeed, you Exceled’: Sydney man dubbed the ‘Annihilator’ wins Excel world champio...."
2023 was also an incredibly exciting year of innovations and delights, from Python in Excel and Copilot in Excel to formula suggestions and formula by example and inserting pictures and checkboxes into cells, and more! Below are only a few highlights – see our monthly What's New in Excel series for more.
- Copilot in Excel. Helps you do more with your data in Excel tables by generating formula column suggestions, showing insights in charts and PivotTables, and highlighting interesting portions of data. Read more >
- Formula Suggestions. Helps you create formulas more quickly and accurately by offering relevant suggestions based on your data and context. Type "=" at the beginning of a cell, and Formula Suggestions will show you different formulas that you can apply to your data, along with a specified range. Read more >
- Formula by Example. Looks for patterns as you enter data in the worksheet. When it recognizes a pattern, Formula by Example offers a formula to fill the rest of the column with the recognized pattern. Read more >
- Checkboxes. Quickly visualize and set TRUE and FALSE values in a cell using checkboxes to simplify data entry and reduce errors. Read more >
- Insert pictures into cells. Insert local pictures, directly into cells, from your device or from the stock image libraries. Read more >
- GROUPBY & PIVOTBY. Perform data aggregations using a single formula. Read more >
- Python in Excel. Natively combine Python and Excel analytics within the same workbook - with no setup required. Type Python directly into a cell, the Python calculations run in the Microsoft Cloud, and your results are returned to the worksheet, including plots and visualizations. Read more >
Thank you for your continued contribution to the community. We look forward to 2024 with even more excitement, innovations, and delights with you all.
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