Just like every month, Microsoft has added a bunch of new features to its Excel app on the web, iOS, and Android clients – as a part of the December update.
While most of them are exclusive to Office Insiders, some are available to all – like the new IMAGE function that has been in testing for a long time. Also, there’s a new keyboard shortcut to open the Power Query editor and more.
Microsoft Excel New Features
Giving users some needed additions right before the holiday, Microsoft added a bunch of new features to its Excel software for all its clients. Starting with the IMAGE function, the updated Excel app will let users insert images directly into a cell from a source location.
While doing so, it even adds the ALT text for the image, thus making it readable for low-vision users. Further, this function lets users manipulate the images within the Excel worksheet too. This feature has been in testing for Office Insiders since August and now rolling out to the public on the web, Windows, and Mac Excel apps. Office Insiders of Android too have this support, but not for all right now.
Aside from this, there’s support for formula suggestions in Excel. Provided that there’s an identifiable data pattern from the previous cells, Excel will now suggest formulas you might want to use in a given cell. Other new additions include a new search bar in the Queries pane for quick findings of your queries and suggestions to fix broken links for cloud workbooks you may have linked to.
While these are available to Office Insiders, regular users have the IMAGE function and a new keyboard shortcut (Alt + F12, or Option + F12 on Mac) to open the Power Query editor.
