The smartest thing Excel does happens in places you can't see.

Functions like FILTER, SORTBY, UNIQUE, XLOOKUP, and VSTACK transform static grids into real-time data systems.

Have you ever found yourself buried under a mountain of Excel spreadsheets, painstakingly updating formulas every time new data comes in? It’s a common struggle, one that can turn even the most ...

Navigating the world of Excel can sometimes feel like trying to solve a puzzle with missing pieces. If you’ve ever found yourself wrestling with the XLOOKUP function, only to be met with a chaotic ...

Microsoft Excel’s dynamic array function XLOOKUP() might completely replace VLOOKUP() and HLOOKUP(). Microsoft Excel’s lookup functions are powerful but often misunderstood because they have a few ...

Q. I get a detailed revenue transaction export from the client, and then I get it again, revised, usually after I’ve already filtered, sorted, and documented my selections. I’m tired of reapplying ...

Use the RANDARRAY() dynamic array function to return random names or other text in Microsoft Excel. The recent article How to generate random letters in Excel shows you how to generate random letters.

is a senior correspondent and author of Notepad, who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years. Microsoft Excel used to only allow two types of data: text and numbers.