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Formula Argument Assistance

Inbar_Privman's avatar
Inbar_Privman
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Mar 20, 2023

We have added a Formula Argument Assistance card to Excel Web!

Formula Argument Assistance card accompanies you while writing a formula, and helps you insert or edit the arguments.

You no longer need to reach out to external sources for help when you are typing your formula! The Argument Assistance card will help you write formulas more efficiently and reduce errors.

 

About the feature

The Argument Assistance card provides descriptions of the function and the different arguments, as well as an example:

The card includes formula and arguments descriptions, and an example.

 

For better orientation, the relevant argument is highlighted during formula editing:

The relevant argument is highlighted.

 

The card can be collapsed and expanded. You can collapse the card and display only the formula signature if you don't want to hide much of the grid:

The card can be collapsed or expanded.

 

For convenience, the card can be dragged and moved around the screen:

The card can be dragged around the screen.

 

How does it work?

Start typing a formula in a cell or in the formula bar. After writing the formula name and the opening parenthesis, the card will appear.

For example:=VLOOKUP(

OR choose a function from the Insert Function dialog OR from the dropdown menus in the Formulas tab.

Card appears after opening parenthesis.

 

Feedback

We hope you like this new addition to Excel Web and we’d love to hear what you think about it!

Please share your feedback with us by clicking the Give Feedback button that can be found at the bottom of the card.

Share your feedback.

 

Availability

Currently, Argument Assistance is available in Excel for the Web. In the future, this feature will be added to Excel desktop versions as well.

Updated Mar 20, 2023
Version 1.0
Argument Assistance
Arguments
assistance
Blog
excel
Excel Formula
  • GabrM's avatar
    GabrM
    Brass Contributor
    Mar 21, 2023

    Inbar_Privman are custom functions going to be supported? In Excel for Windows, we are relying on a 3rd party component (ExcelDna Intellisense) to provide this for our custom functions and I was hoping we'd see full support for custom functions exposed by modern Office add-ins.

     

    It shows the function name and description, but nothing for the arguments, despite the fact that this information is in the metadata

     

     

     

  • Tim__E's avatar
    Tim__E
    Copper Contributor
    Mar 21, 2023

    Looks, great. I look forward to this being available for the desktop application. 

  • lori_m's avatar
    lori_m
    Steel Contributor
    Mar 26, 2023

    Inbar_Privman

    This is a great addition for general users. It'd also be really helpful if additional guidance was available on DA evaluation, which can be confusing at times, including function signature details and improved formula tools. Taking MATCH as an example, the following formula returns a single value result when one might expect an array:
    =MATCH(A1,B1:B5,C1:C2)
    Stepping through Evaluate Formula with suitable inputs shows the third argument seems to be passed as a range and in order to return an array the range needs to be converted to an array explicitly: +C1:C2. On the other hand if the first argument is changed to A1:A2 stepping through the evaluation appears to show the conversion from range to array is implicit - presumably as the range is passed as values. It'd be nice if this was all made more transparent...

  • Sameer_Bhide's avatar
    Sameer_Bhide
    Iron Contributor
    Mar 22, 2023

    Inbar_Privman 

    Any chance that this will get extended to Lamdas and UDF's (VBA, xll etc)

    Also any chance of updating the syntax of some of the functions like for e.g

    MATCH(lookupValue, lookupArray,[match type]) should actually be lookupValue(s), lookupArray, [match_type(s)]

    because we can write =MATCH(D1:D4, A1:A20,{0,1})

     

    Cheers

    Sam