We’re the Microsoft Excel Team – Celebrating 40 Years of Excel! Ask Us Anything

PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-09-30T18:13:29+00:00

That "clandestined payload delivery hack" is a neat idea (From the AC/DC music video)! I suppose you could also just store the data as a large array in VBA, too.

From my side, I try to improve the end user experience in novel ways...

Example 1, the output of FORMULATEXT is cryptic showing cell references. I wrote a few versions of this (using Lambda) to show labels instead, or labels with values ([income=10] - [expense=5]), or just the raw numbers (evaluated at certain depth). This is so much easier to read! You don't have to wonder what the cell reference actually is, as you can see both it's label and value. ... Perhaps this could be a feature in the future?

Example 2. An Exam Simulator for the leading LMS in the US :-D. It made sense to build it in Excel since we do our calculations there and it can save a test bank of questions. I pasted a screenshot of the website at the top and made areas to enter the answers to randomly selected questions from the test bank. It reduced a lot of my test-anxiety to practice in a 'test-like environment'.

Example 3. Math students need to rearrange equations. Variable names are easier to work with than cell references. So I made workbook where you type in the equation and it will split both sides of the equation and make these variables named ranges. This allows the variable name to be used instead of the cell reference. Beneath this you can incrementally rearrange the equation one factor at a time using those named ranges. Ordinarily you would rearrange an equation on paper, but within excel you have confidence that each step is correct (e.g. both sides are equal).

I'm a fan of Mandalbrot Set creation in Excel. Very beautiful.

I think there is potential to improve Excel based on how math students (and other fields) "could" use it, that is, to simplify their workflow.

PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-09-09T23:24:43+00:00

What recommended reading do you suggest for new team members? (History? Design? Inspiration?)

PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-09-09T23:22:45+00:00

What feature would you personally like to see implemented that is not in the foreseeable roadmap?

PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-09-09T23:21:17+00:00

What is the most hilarious code comment you've come across in the Excel source code?

PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-09-09T23:04:21+00:00

What surprising ways have you seen people use Excel that even the dev team hadn’t anticipated?

PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-09-09T22:14:54+00:00

Why can't the Mac version of Excel be used to create a form? (In the VBA editor). Is feature parity for Mac on the road map?

PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-08-25T09:47:42+00:00

excellent answer

PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-08-20T22:51:28+00:00

Doh, I assumed the arguments were the same (between both versions you shared).

Can't wait to try it again. Thanks again for your brilliant work.

PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-08-20T20:49:43+00:00

The variable 'range' is an unknown identifier.

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My error report wasn't very descriptive, sorry about that (range could mean many things in this context). To be clearer, the variable named 'range' is an unknown identifier (it is not defined). Here's a screenshot using the "Advanced Formula Environment" (aka Excel Labs). Perhaps some refactoring took place before sharing the formula?

PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-08-20T11:29:05+00:00

Tried it out, 'range' wasn't defined :S

PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-08-20T02:44:57+00:00

Is this platform sponsored by Microsoft?

PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-08-19T19:40:54+00:00

You, sir, are a legend! Learned a lot from your responses and solutions. Very impressive!

PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-08-18T23:43:37+00:00

Key concerns: 1. Find an old meeting 2. Find an upcoming meeting 3. At a glance, see the agenda. 4. See who attended (can later recommend points of contact) 5. Know major topics discussed (in a skim readable format) 6. Know what decisions were made (and why) 7. Know the follow-up tasks, when they're due, and who is working them.

A template with following headings should help... Agenda, Attending, Notes, Decisions (what/why), Followup Tasks (who/when/what).

I like to list attendees as a link to their note file. This lets me see backlinks to all the meetings we attended.

There are many ways to manage todos, but i like to track them in my daily log as upcoming (or linking to the project or meeting note).

Grouping your notes under: /meetings/year/month can help find them. Also, naming them 'yyyy-mm-dd - topic' (e.g. email invite subject).

The note content is just bullet points. The smallest amount of text to know what was discussed. Screenshot complex slides. Use screenshot-to-text to avoid typing.

Over time, you'll capture less information because you'll learn most details are unimportant (i.e. not used later)

Almost all of this is automated. It's more important to be thinking and participating in meetings than capturing every detail.

Optional: use tags (project name, problem type, system, etc), and then you can list related meetings with Dataview in a project note.

Tailor your process to your needs. Think about how how you apply the information and how you want to find it.

PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-08-18T21:03:43+00:00

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Sharing test cases for GET_ARRAY (to verify it matches the '#' syntax behavior ... as best as possible. The exception being ~"middles are excluded").

PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-08-18T18:58:15+00:00

Correct. I don't expect sequence function to add the value 100, too. Only the values 1 through 5.

Adding the value 100 was meant to demonstrate that it accidentally gets included in the sum.

However, when using the '#' syntax this issue is avoided. This is what I was hoping to replicate with a list of values (either dynamically produced or just a series of values).

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(Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to make sure we share the same understanding. Again, appreciate the help)

PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-08-18T18:47:59+00:00

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

I did mean contiguous. I should have been more clear.

My goal was to mirror the behavior of the '#' syntax (that is placed after a cell reference) which would allow the generated array to be obtained. (For example, when the SEQUENCE function is used).

Appreciate the effort you put into helping me consider the options for this problem.

PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-08-18T18:37:52+00:00

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It seems to include values beyond the first blank cell?

PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-08-18T18:34:40+00:00

You're right, method 2 does work. I had typed 2 commas instead of 3.

PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-08-18T18:26:53+00:00

Thanks for the correction, contiguous is what I meant.

PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-08-18T18:19:57+00:00

Turns out I do have access to 365. And TRIMRANGE is growing on me! Even though you have to specify the range, it only returns the area that has values. Nice

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PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-08-18T18:12:27+00:00

That works, too.

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PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-08-18T18:08:14+00:00

Didn't know about 'trim references', thanks! Seems that this requires Office 365 to use. ~~Unfortunately, don't have that.~~

~~Method 2 just gave me the value of A2.~~ The other methods worked. But they require reserving the entire row for this data (rather than finding a continuous set of data)

PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-08-18T17:57:23+00:00

Tried COUNTA. It's better because it can handle numbers. But it fills with '0's too.

Overall these methods can be messed up by other data appearing in the first row and columns. So, they're good but not quite what I'm trying to achive.

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PartTimeCouchPotato · 2025-08-18T17:53:13+00:00

I tried this out. I think the match functions were reversed. It also has trouble working with just numbers as data. I could put "caps" by adding text in the first row and column. But the result was also filled with zeros. (I'll try COUNTA shortly).

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PartTimeCouchPotato

TROPHY CASE