Key Takeaways
- Excel for the web now allows users to filter comments like Mac clients, helping prioritize important feedback.
- Excel for Windows and Mac now supports regex functions natively, eliminating the need for third-party add-ins.
- Microsoft has introduced REGEXTEST, REGEXEXTARCT, and REGEXREPLACE functions, currently exclusive to Beta Channel Insiders.
Microsoft is quite transparent about what new features it’s working on for Microsoft 365, as it gives us updates about those through its roadmap website on almost a daily basis. The company also releases a list of new features it adds to popular Microsoft 365 apps every month. Continuing the trend, the software giant has just released the list of features that it rolled out for Excel users in May 2024.
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Another week passed, but not without Microsoft keeping us updated with new features it’s planning to add to Microsoft 365 in the coming months.
What’s new in Excel for web
Excel web client is now capable of allowing users to filter comments, a capability that Mac users have been taking advantage of for a long. The filter comments feature on Excel for the web works similarly to its Mac client. When certain filters are applied, it’ll show you indicators on those comments, thus helping you spot the most important feedback on the worksheet. And that’s all that’s new to Excel for the web this month.
What’s new in Excel for Windows and Mac
Just like last month, Excel has something for Windows and Mac users, too. Excel Windows and Mac clients finally have native support for Regular expressions functions (a.k.a. regex or regexp), eliminating the need for third-party add-ins to be able to be able to find whether any part of text matches a specific pattern on Excel workbooks.
Microsoft has introduced three new regex functions, including REGEXTEST, REGEXEXTARCT, and REGEXREPLACE. Each of them has a different purpose, as described below:
REGEXTEST : Checks if any part of supplied text matches a regex pattern.
REGEXEXTRACT : Extracts one or more parts of supplied text that match a regex pattern.
REGEXREPLACE : Searches for a regex pattern within supplied text and replaces it with different text.
However, it’s important to note that these new regex functions are currently exclusive to Beta Channel Insiders. Microsoft will roll out native support for regex functions more widely after testing them with Insiders. It’s also promised to introduce regex within XLOOKUP and XMATCH in the coming days. However, just like the newly introduced three regex functions, support for regex in XLOOKUP and XMATCH will be rolled out to Beta Channel Insiders first.