What's New in Excel (September 2024)

Welcome to the September 2024 update. We are excited to announce that Copilot in Excel and Python in Excel are now generally available and ready to assist data-driven professionals around the world. In addition, we are announcing the public preview of Copilot in Excel with Python, enabling powerful advanced analysis.

 

Excel for Windows, Mac, and web:
- Copilot in Excel

Excel for Windows:

- Copilot in Excel with Python (Insiders)
- Python in Excel

- TRIMRANGE and accompanying trim references (Insiders)

- Accessibility Assistant #FIA

Excel for Windows, Mac, and web

Copilot in Excel
On September 16, we unveiled the next wave of Copilot including the announcement that Copilot in Excel is now generally available and ready to assist data-driven professionals around the world. Copilot in Excel is built into your workbook, enabling you to iterate with it quickly and easily. This integration allows you to continually prompt as you work, making it feel like you have an Excel expert right by your side. Read more here >

Copilot in Excel is asked to highlight marketing spend if it is higher than revenue. Copilot provides a suggested conditional formatting formula. The suggestion is applied and the highlights appear in the spreadsheet.

 

Excel for Windows

Copilot in Excel with Python (Insiders)
Now using Copilot in Excel with Python, you can conduct advanced analysis that was previously out of reach. You can use natural language to describe the analysis you want to perform, and Copilot will automatically generate, explain, and insert Python code into your Excel spreadsheet. Copilot in Excel with Python also renders stunning visuals that were previously not possible or were difficult to create. Unique visuals like heatmaps, pairplots, multiplots, and violin plots help you understand and communicate your analysis. Read more here >

 

Copilot in Excel with Python is asked to visualize data. Copilot creates and inserts Python code resulting in three chart types.

Python in Excel
Python in Excel is now generally available for Windows users of Microsoft 365 Business and Enterprise. Last August, in partnership with Anaconda, we introduced an exciting new addition to Excel by integrating Python, making it possible to seamlessly combine Python and Excel analytics within the same workbook, no setup required. Since then, we’ve brought the power of popular Python analytics libraries such as pandas, Matplotlib, and NLTK to countless Excel users.

With Python in Excel users can harness advanced analytics for visualizations, data cleaning, machine learning, predictive analytics, and now, even more! Read the blog and watch the video here >

 

Leverage predictive analytics with Python in Excel.

TRIMRANGE and accompanying trim references (Insiders)

We’re introducing a new function and a set of supporting references:

• TRIMRANGE function – a function that removes empty rows and columns from the edges of a range. 
• Trim references – offer a more succinct way to call common variations of the TRIMRANGE function.

This feature is currently rolling out to Windows Insiders users.

Read more here >

 

Calculate the length of text entered into column A with TRIMRANGE

 

Accessibility Assistant

Accessibility Assistant helps you to create inclusive content that is accessible to all readers. It flags and helps you fix issues that could prevent your documents from being understood and used by everyone. 

 

Accessibility assistant helps check your content to ensure it's inclusive for all users.

 

 

 

Many of these features are the result of your feedback. THANK YOU! Your continued Feedback in Action (#FIA) helps improve Excel for everyone. Please let us know how you like a particular feature and what we can improve upon—"Give a compliment" or "Make a suggestion"..  You can also submit new ideas or vote for other ideas via Microsoft Feedback.

 

Subscribe to our Excel Blog and the Insiders Blog to get the latest updates. Stay connected with us and other Excel fans around the world – join our Excel Community and follow us on X, formerly Twitter.

 

Special thanks to our Excel MVPs David Benaim, Bill Jelen, and Alan Murray for their contribution to this month's What's New in Excel article. David publishes weekly YouTube videos and regular LinkedIn posts about the latest innovations in Excel and more. Bill is the founder and host of MrExcel.com and the author of several books about Excel. Alan is an Excel trainer, author and speaker, best known for his blog Computergaga.com and YouTube channel with the same name.