Microsoft is testing Python functionality in Excel spreadsheets

A new feature will soon be slithering into Excel spreadsheets near you: Python: you’ll be able to run the programming language directly in the ubiquitous data processing program.

Microsoft previewed the update in a Tuesday blog post, saying it plans to “integrate Python and Excel analytics within the same Excel grid for uninterrupted workflow.”

“Python in Excel combines Python’s powerful data analysis and visualization libraries with Excel’s features you know and love,” the company said. “You can manipulate and explore data in Excel using Python plots and libraries, and then use Excel’s formulas, charts, and PivotTables to further refine your insights.”

The forthcoming capabilities will first be rolled out to members of the Microsoft 365 Insider beta program with a family or personal subscription or a business/education subscription. Users with a perpetual license are not automatically eligible and must buy an additional license. While the Python integration will be free to use during the testing phase, “some functionality will be restricted without a paid license” down the road, Microsoft indicated, and not all Insiders users will have access.

Developers can already use a variety of tools to integrate Python and Excel manually, but Microsoft said its partnership with the Anaconda platform will help translate a variety of useful Python features automatically into spreadsheets. On its blog, Anaconda posted that “libraries like pandas for data manipulation, statsmodels for advanced statistical modeling, and Matplotlib and Seaborn for data visualization” will become more readily available to Excel users.

However, over on Reddit, early reactions are skeptical at best, with some users raising concerns about how the feature will run securely.

The Python x Excel collab might not be forever. Microsoft notes in the blog post that “though this is rare, we also reserve the option to pull a feature entirely out of the product even if you, as an Insider, have had the opportunity to try it.”