This Microsoft Excel update could be the one we've all been waiting for

This Microsoft Excel update could be the one we've all been waiting for

An upcoming update to Microsoft Excel could be about to solve a common frustration for users around the world.

A new entry in the Microsoft 365 roadmap (opens in a new tab) has revealed that users will soon be able to insert data directly from an image or image into the spreadsheet.

Microsoft notes that users will be able to add table data from an image from the Data tab, a welcome update for many, saving them the tedious process of manually entering data like they used to.

Excel data images

The update is still listed as "in development" at the time of writing, but Microsoft has posted a general availability date of June 2022, which means a release may not be too far away.

Once released, the feature is set to be available to all Microsoft Excel web users worldwide.

Excel already has an Image Data feature, available for Mac, iPhone, and Android, that analyzes an image for relevant data that can then be edited and pasted into your spreadsheet.

The news is the latest in a series of recent updates to Microsoft Excel that seem basic, but will be very welcome to users around the world.

This includes the ability to allow users to place hyperlinks in comments added to spreadsheets, rather than the previous format of just adding them to plain text comments and manually pasting them into a web browser.

Microsoft also recently revealed that it will bring smoother scrolling support to the Excel desktop app, which will hopefully result in a much better user experience and put an end to accidentally snapping to unwanted random cells or losing all your data. vital in the middle. . of an important work task.

Finally, the company introduced a new JavaScript API in November 2021 that will allow developers to create their own custom data types in Excel. These new custom data types can contain images, entities, arrays, and formatted numeric values, all backed by your own custom data sources. These new Excel data types can also be used as inputs and outputs.