Microsoft has announced that its Excel spreadsheet software is getting native Python integration. This will allow the use of the programming language code and scripts directly into spreadsheet cells, letting you use both at the same time. As you’d expect though, this won’t be immediately available to everyone. Instead, the company is making this available to Microsoft 365 Insiders through the Public Preview of Python in Excel.
According to the announcement post, Python in Excel is powered by Microsoft Cloud, where the calculations are run. The company also partnered with data science platform Anaconda Distribution and its Python libraries, running in Azure, to make this integration happen. And using it is as simple as inputting the new =PY function, without any additional installation needed.
In a separate support page, Microsoft says that Python in Excel uses a custom Python function x1 () to interface. This allows the combination of Python programming language and existing spreadsheet elements like ranges, tables, queries and names.
As mentioned earlier, Python in Excel is available only in Public Preview for those who are a part of the Microsoft 365 Insiders Beta Channel. On a related note, availability of the feature in Excel for Windows starts with build 16818.Though once the preview window ends, some features may be locked behind a paid license. The company also says that more details will be made available before the general availability of the feature, but did not mention when that is happening either.
(Source: Microsoft [1], [2])
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