Excel for Windows (Desktop Application)
Welcome to the Excel for Windows (Desktop Application) feedback forum! This is the place for users to send us suggestions and ideas on how to improve. If you think you have found a bug, please send us feedback in-app instead! To do so, please click “File”, then “Feedback”, then “Send a Frown” in Excel. This way, we will get detailed information that will help us better diagnose the problem.
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VLOOKUP function for multiple criteria
There should be a *VLOOKUPS function (or you name it) alongside VLOOKUP to find data based on multiple criteria. I know there are workarounds like INDEX and MATCH but they are unnecessarily complicated considering COUNTIFS and SUMIFS functions do a neat job at counting and adding multiple criteria. And please make it so it works with unsorted data.
345 votesThanks for the feedback! We’re seeing a number of different posts about lookup functions – we’ll be taking a close look at this area and thinking it through. We’ll prioritize the asks according to votes along with other requests on the site. So I encourage people to keep voting if it’s something they really want to see the priority raised on.
Best,
John [MS XL] -
IP Address as a datatype.
I would love to see IP Addresses added as a format option and functions added for validation of the IP addresses..
For instance InSubnet(Network as IP,Netmask as Integer,address as IP) to determine if an IP is within a Subnet;
Being able to do addition/subtraction on the field would be awesome as well!
271 votesThanks for the suggestion Alex, and thanks to those that making their vote heard. This is a pretty interesting ask – take a look at the comment I made. I’d like us to understand a few related things. And as always, please keep voting for the things you care about most.
Cheers,
John [MS XL] -
Workbook level calculation
We need the ability to calculate a single workbook when multiple workbooks are open.
When working with multiple large slow workbooks which are often not even linked together (think multiple versions of the same workbook or a large mostly static workbook being referenced by a smaller rapidly changing workbook) you want to make changes and recalculate without globally recalculating all open workbooks.
This should be implemented as
a) New calculation setting (persistent) - Calculate Active Workbook Only - works for Automatic and Manual F9, but Ctrl/Alt/F9 would full calculate all open workbooks regardless of the setting.
Automatic Calc in Active…190 votesThanks for the post Charles, and for the in person conversation at the latest MVP conference. We definitely understand the ask and will keep our eye on it – it looks like it’s moving up the vote charts pretty quickly. As always, keep upvoting the things you are about most.
Best,
John [MS XL] -
Two new =if's
Just like =IFERROR(), could we also get =IFBLANK() and =IFZERO(). I would use these on a regular basis, and it would cut in half the size of large formulas where I just want something specific to happen where the result is either blank or zero
185 votesThanks for the suggestion figboot. As always, we’ll prioritize this according to the number of votes it gets, so please be sure to vote it up if you want to see it done sooner.
Thanks
John [MS XL] -
Built-in RegEx / Regular Expressions Functions to Search, Extract, and Replace
I've constantly found myself installing and re-installing add-ins that add RegEx Functions to Excel. Everyone I introduce them too finds them extremely useful. There's over half a million results in google for the query ["excel" ("regular expression" OR "regex")].
426 votesThanks for the suggestion! We’re fans of Regex and its ability to parse text too.
If you’d like to see Regex support in Excel, please keep the votes rolling in.
- JoeMcD [MS XL]
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Use F4 key to lock reference in a table
When you create formula with the named range of a table, you can't easily block the reference of your column.
For instance, if you used the fill-handle to copy to the right, the reference of your column will change :( The only way to avoid that is to write [[column1]:[column1]] for all your reference (very annoying)
So my suggestion to block the reference of a named range is to use the F4 key.
Your formula is =SUM(table1[column1]) and after pressing F4 it becomes =SUM(table1[[column1]:[column1]])140 votesGood suggestion Frederic – thanks for taking the time to post it. We’ll take a look at the F4 loop and including other functionality like this as soon as we can. We’ll be spending more time on the things with more votes – so folks that really want to see this should keep voting it up.
Best,
John [MS XL] -
Auto resizing of formula bar
Give us an easily accessible option to have the formula bar resize automatically if a formula spans across multiple rows in the formula bar so the whole formula will be visible.
147 votesThanks for the suggestion. I think I’ve seen some related requests, I’ll look at merging them to make sure the votes properly reflect the ask. We’ll prioritize this into the execution pipe appropriately based on the number of votes.
Cheers,
John [MS XL] -
Protect me from #REF! ambushes
Every so often I delete cells and unbeknownst to me create a bunch of #REF! errors in another part of my worksheet. I may not realize until much later when I can no longer undo back to fix the error. Excel could spare me this. If my deletion is about to create #REF!s it should bring up an alert like "Other cells depend on the cells you are about to delete. Would you like Excel to adjust their formulas to avoid #REF! errors? [Yes][No][Cancel]. [No] would do what it does today. [Cancel] would abort the operation. [Yes] would smartly substitute…
104 votesThanks to RH for posting this suggestion. If avoiding #REF! errors is important to you also, please add your vote to support RH’s suggestion. We will prioritize accordingly.
Thanks,
Steve (MS Excel) -
Make it easier to find external links
Not just break them - help us to find where they are. It's time consuming to look in charts, data validation, conditional formatting, data and shapes.
286 votesThanks for your feedback! We’re reviewing your suggestion. Remember, the more votes a suggestion gets, the more likely it is that we’ll do it.
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Adding a native interpolation function in Excel
Interpolation (even a simple linear interpolation) would be a great native function for Excel to have. Something like INTERPOLATE(KnownXRange,KnownYRange, NewX) would be fantastic for anyone who ever has to do this
The current workaround looks something like this:
=FORECAST(NewX,OFFSET(KnownY,MATCH(NewX,KnownX,1)-1,0,2), OFFSET(KnownX,MATCH(NewX,KnownX,1)-1,0,2))
60 votesThanks for the suggestion, and thanks for showing how you’re using the FORECAST as a workaround. We’ll consider this request along with all the other ideas here and prioritize it according to the votes – so please keep voting if you want to see the priority raised!
Best,
John [MS XL] -
VLookup and Inserting Columns: VLookup should increment the col_index_num when you insert a new column in the range.
When you insert a column and it affects the range referred to by a vlookup, the table range updates but the column index number does not. The column index number should increase with the table range so that the same column is pulled. I can't think of a scenario where inserting columns in a table but not updating the column index is a user's intended course of action.
41 votesThanks for the suggestion Alexander. We’ll be taking a look at how various lookup scenarios work and looking at improvements there. We’ll be sure to deeply consider anything that’s got a lot of votes, so please keep voting for the things you find most important.
Thanks,
John [MS XL] -
Integrate error handling/value on error for functions such as VLOOKUP
While functions like IFERROR and ISERROR exist, it complicates things to have to wrap each function in an error checker.
E.g.
=IFERROR(VLOOKUP(C2,A1:B6,2,FALSE),"not found")
could become:
=VLOOKUP(C2,A1:B6,2,FALSE,"not found")39 votesWe’re always looking for ways to make formulas smaller and easier – thanks for the suggestion! We’ll prioritize this according to the number of votes, so keep voting if you want to see this get done sooner!
Thanks,
John [MS XL] -
Extend VLOOKUP() and HLOOKUP()
Extend the lookup functions so they can lookup left/up as well as right/down. That will save us having to build and maintain unintuitive formulae combining INDEX() and MATCH().
75 votesThanks for taking the time to post a suggestion Malcolm! We’ll be taking a look at lookup functions. There’s a number of votes on the site for them – I’m not going to merge all of them though because different posts are asking for slightly different things. Please keep voting for the ones you want to see most!
Cheers,
John [MS XL] -
Prominent Manual Calculation Mode warning
Given the great danger of not realising that calculation mode is set to Manual, it would be very beneficial if a "Manual Calculation Mode" indicator (in bright fire-engine red!) was displayed (and visibility maintained until calc mode is switched back to non-manual) in a prominent location - such as in the Title Bar to the left of the Minimize button.
33 votesThanks for the suggestion Col. There’s a lot to do, and we’ll take a look at getting this into the plans according to the number of votes – vote on!
Thanks,
John [MS XL] -
A simple function to replace the IF(A1="","",EnterFormulaHere)
Everyone down to amateur excel users knows the quick fix for displaying no value in a cell if it's precedent is blank is the =IF(A1="","",EnterFormulaHere). Usually used when the end user hasn't yet entered information into input cells and Errors in cells are undesired.
This gets more complex when there are many precedent cells and requires this =IF(OR(A1="",B2="",C3=""),"",EnterFormulaHere) etc.
We need a function for this such as:
=IFBLANK(IfNotBlank,[CellsToCheck],[All/Any])So, =IFBLANK(A1B2C3) would only return the result of the formula if none of cells A1, B2 and C3 were blank.
Or, =IFBLANK(A1B2C3,(A1,B2,D7)) allows the user to select the…
19 votesInteresting suggestion Jon, thanks for posting it. There’s some other suggestions around blank/null, so we’ll be taking a look at the space in general, and making particularly sure that we consider related functions that get a lot of votes. As always, the more votes something gets the more chance that a specific request gets in the execution pipe sooner. So I just want to encourage folks to keep voting for the ideas they like best!
Cheers,
John [MS XL] -
Add scientific constants
Currently excel has Euler's number and pi, but it'd be great if it had functions with precise values for other commonly used constants like speed of light, electron charge, Plancks constant, Boltzmann constant, Avogadro's number etc.
12 votesThanks for the suggestion Rolands! I’d be curious to see, in comments, what other constants people are interested in. I’ll check back on this later, and of course the more votes it has the more likely it is to get into the product – so please keep the votes coming if you like the idea!
Best,
John [MS XL] -
Countif(search("string",array)=true)
Allow countif (and countifs) to count cells where I am searching an array for a string value. For example, if I have a table with dates in one column and names in another column, but I may have multiple names in a single cell, I want to be able to count the number of cells that have John listed even if that cell also has Jane as a value.
11 votesGood suggestion Omar, thanks for posting. We’ll prioritize this according to votes – so please keep voting for the ideas you like most!
Thanks,
John [MS XL] -
7 votes
Thanks for the suggestion. We’ll consider it along with all the other ideas here and prioritize it according to the votes – so please keep voting if you want to see the priority raised!
Best,
John [MS XL] -
MODE function work for text
Could you make the MODE function work for text?
Currently you have to do a crazy index and lookup thing, which could all be made so much easier if mode worked for text. i.e., if you have MODE("a", "b", "c", "a") you would get "a".7 votesInteresting idea – thanks for the suggestion Tomiam8. We’ll consider this and prioritize by vote, so please keep voting if you want to see the priority raised!
Thanks,
John [MS XL] -
Network functions, like ping() or nslookup()
Handy if you have a column of hostnames or IP addresses.
9 votesInteresting idea, thanks for the suggestion. I’d be interested to know if there are other functions in this area that people also want to see. I’ll check back soon to see how many votes this is getting, so if you like the idea be sure to vote for it.
Cheers,
John [MX XL]
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