What is New in Excel for January 2024

Wow - the ability to insert pictures in a cell is a feature I have wanted for years.

I often have to reply to clients comments in an Excel s/s and paste images e.g. from a document or simulation, and these float over the cells, and depending on pcs used to read replies, these images can all too easily become misaligned with comments.

Here is an example of the difference.



You can also insert in merged cells e.g. if merging in a single cell would mean picture is too small (without significantly increasing row height - column width is less of an issue) as shown below.

This is definitely a significant new feature that I will use (assuming my work's Excel gets updated asap).




Note: This above was from release not Insider version of MS Office 365.

I have no idea if this feature will be backported to older versions of MS Office but I suspect not.

I wonder how this would render on an older version of Excel. Perhaps somebody would be kind of enough to try it (@Edwin)?

Here is a link to the spreadsheet.

cereberus said:

... the ability to insert pictures in a cell is a feature I have wanted for years.

Click to expand...

Cool!

Edwin said:

Cool!

View attachment 85592

Click to expand...

is that text and image in same cell?

cereberus said:

is that text and image in same cell?

Click to expand...

Yeah.

For data of that type I'd store in a MySQL type database and then just send the query output to the user -- no probs with pictures or anything else.

I use EXCEL a lot but sometimes I think people are trying to use it as a fully fledged database which is really the wrong application for EXCEL.
Things like MariaDB and MySQL (both free) are very powerful, run on Windows and are much more flexible,

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

For data of that type I'd store in a MySQL type database and then just send the query output to the user -- no probs with pictures or anything else.

I use EXCEL a lot but sometimes I think people are trying to use it as a fully fledged database which is really the wrong application for EXCEL.
Things like MariaDB and MySQL (both free) are very powerful, run on Windows and are much more flexible,

Cheers
jimbo

Click to expand...

Sledgehammer to crack a nut for my needs.

cereberus said:

Sledgehammer to crack a nut for my needs.

Click to expand...

Depends on your needs of course but I find using MariaDB for a decent photo and pictures library using a DB works very well -- the EXIF info from a DSLR has just about every decent field in it you could want to query / sort /find etc.

SQL is a very simple query language - IMO much easier than convoluted EXCEL set ups - plus it's fast too since you don't need to store the physical data in the DB but just a link to the physical location. I can see the value of things of thumbnail size in EXCEL sheets but larger photos --- the thing could get very large quickly and take forever to run.

This site has an explanation of how to do it. MariaDB and MySQL have same syntax, both run on Windows and Linux so good for NAS servers of any type and is free. MariaDB is more commonly used on home / small servers.Data can also be returned to EXCEL via the get data function in EXCEL -- ensure that the MariaDB/MySQL OBDC driver is installed on Windows to do this though.


cheers
jimbo

Excel issue
Having a problem with Excel. I know, we are not supposed to be using Excel for other chores. But the best tool for the job is the one we actually use and like.

I am now organized with Excel. But it attacks like nothing I have ever seen before. I put pictures in comments, close and save. Open the next time and the pictures show only half. Did a search and a lot of people are having this same problem. One solution was to re-do the comments one at a time. The poster had thousands.

I myself have hundreds. Am enclosing an example. Hover over a picture in a comment and half the picture is shown. Two results here of the same comment, one shows the full photo, the other shows half and I don't know why.