Hi there,

Excel’s new feature Insert Data from Picture lets you extract data from any picture or screenshot, and insert it right into your workbook.

Now, you might be thinking - ‘when will I ever use this?’

Here are 3 great use cases:

1. 😡 Get Data from Screenshots
   If you’ve ever tried to copy/paste data from a web site, you’ve likely noticed that the formatting looks different after you’ve pasted it than it did on the website. Taking data from a screenshot gets around this problem.
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2. 🤓 Solving Other People’s Problems
   Someone has shared a screenshot of their Excel sheet with you - but you don’t have access to the actual file (maybe for security reasons). This happens to me all the time, when I’m solving a problem for one of my students.
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3. 📊 When Power Query Doesn’t Work
   This is also a great trick for those times when you can’t use Power Query to get data from a website because the table isn’t an html table.

Here’s how Insert Data from Picture works:

1. Go to the Data tab and click on From Picture (from the Get and Transform Data section)

2. Browse for and select your image, then click Insert

3. You’ll get a little preview of your image in the right-hand panel

4. Click Review to check your data is correct

5. Select Insert Data, and everything will appear inside your sheet!

Check out my recent video on this for more info and examples.

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Thanks to Shortform for sponsoring today’s newsletter 😊.

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🤖 Quickly Analyze Data with AI in Excel

Excel’s built-in AI tool Analyze Data can analyze your Excel sheets for trends and insights, then offer you a selection of PivotTables to show the results. You can also ask it questions using Natural Language Processing. For example, “Which region had the least total sales?”

You can ask it to create charts as well. For example, I could just type in ‘average cost by category as column chart’, and Excel would generate the chart option:

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🤓 Geeky News

📝 Microsoft Word - Smart Save Reminders​
Using machine learning, Word can now detect when you’re working on a local file, and suggest you save your progress. It consider factors like how long you’ve been working on the file, and how much content you’ve added. I tend to set AutoSave off for some documents so this is a great reminder.

🌈 Power BI - New Accessible Color Themes​
Microsoft have released five new accessible color themes in Power BI. Now you can create beautiful, accessible reports quicker!

🖼️ Edge - New PDF Experience​
Microsoft have partnered with Adobe to bring the Acrobat PDF engine into the Edge PDF reader. Which means you’ll get better graphics, performance, security, and accessibility directly in the browser. This update is planned to go live in March 2023.

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💚 My Favorite Things

🪵 Desk Accessory - Grovemade Wood Laptop Stand
Grovemade sent me several of their wooden desk accessories, and I especially liked the wooden laptop stand. It’s non-adjustable but tilted at the perfect angle for my neck, and it’s really easy to type on. It’s also perfect for online meetings. The camera is at the right height.

🤖 Microsoft Bing - A hacker recently tricked Bing into revealing its original prompts, including that its project code name at Microsoft is Sydney. Goes to show these technologies aren’t yet ready, but that’s probably the approach Microsoft, Google and the like are taking. Release then fix. What’s the damage though?

📊 Excel Memes - 40 Hilarious Pics And Memes You Might Appreciate If You’ve Ever Used Microsoft Excel
I wonder who has done #9? I also relate to this one below - it’s just like looking at the financial reporting files at my old corporate job 🙈

🚀 Power Stories

Thank you to Emin from Turkey/Canada for his lovely review of our Fast Track to PowerBI course. “I always remember certain teachers of mine, and you are one of those teachers that I’ll always tell people about.’ 💚

See you next week,

Leila

Want more?

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