Microsoft has been striving to improve its applications for quite some time. From generative artificial intelligence that may be introduced into Microsoft Paint to new applications planned for Bing, along with projects like Microsoft Copilot, the tech giant is focused on enhancing the user experience and providing users with more tools to reduce technological burdens. This philosophy has largely led the company to partner with the Python programming language, which can now be experimented with in Excel spreadsheets as an experimental feature.
One of the most useful Excel extensions
Although it’s not an add-on for everyone, Excel Labs, a part of Microsoft, has created a Python editor as an extension to its spreadsheet management tool. According to their blog, the Python Editor will display Python cells in the order of execution, along with the code’s result for each cell, assisting in debugging and understanding the code.
This editor supports a wide range of features typically found in Microsoft Visual Studio for Python development, such as Intellisense, code formatting, automatic code completion, and syntax highlighting. Similarly, the editor allows creators to write Python code and then move it around within the Excel application, enabling them to freely code in the editor and apply it directly within the application when they are satisfied with it.
As mentioned earlier, Excel Labs is an Excel add-in, so it’s not enabled by default in the program that everyone uses. To have it, you must first activate it through the “add-ins” option. Once you’ve done that, it should appear as usual, and you can select the Python editor in the upper right corner.
