Think Excel's just for crunching numbers? Wrong!

It can do so much more. Especially these days, when it's getting more & more powerful.

In today's Between the Sheets:

• making QR codes in Excel
• Global Excel Summit last call
• new Excel functions rolling out to more users

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🎬 QR Code in Excel

You need to bulk create a batch of QR codes sending people to different websites?

Excel is the perfect tool for that.

Forget about third-party add-ins! All you need is the latest version of Excel 365.

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In this video, I show you 2 ways to generate QR codes in Excel:

1. Using the IMAGE function.
2. Using Python in Excel.

Black and white is boring? With Python, you can get creative 🎨 😁

Grab the file for a closer look.

Note: Python in Excel is currently only available in Microsoft 365 for Windows. You can find out more about availability here. The quickest way to check if you have it is to go to the Formulas tab and look for "Insert Python".

BTW, if you're wondering what you can use QR codes for, the possibilities are endless. Here're some ideas:

• Product Labels – Link to instructions, warranties, or how-to videos.
• Real Estate Listings – Print QR codes on brochures linking to property details.
• Warehouse Management – Assign QR codes to inventory for fast scanning and tracking.
• Coupons & Discounts – Generate multiple QR codes for personalized promotions.
• Digital Business Cards for Teams – Bulk-generate QR codes linking to each employee’s contact info.
• Event Badges – Create unique QR codes for each attendee for seamless check-in.

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Global Excel Summit - Last Chance for Tickets

Speaking of events...

Only 2 days left until the Global Excel Summit 2025!

Things kick off on Tuesday, February 4th, at Soho Place theatre in London.

This week I was finalizing my keynote presentation and I'm super excited.

Learn more here.

You can still book online tickets.

If you live near London, you might catch one of the last in-person passes (come say hi!).

❗Whether you're booking in-person or online tickets, use the code LEILA at checkout to get 20% off.

If you can't participate in the full 3 days, you might still sign up for the community day on Thursday, February 6th.

The community day is FREE, but still packed with insightful virtual sessions. Including from Chandoo, Bob Umlas, and current champion of Financial Modeling World Cup, Diarmuid Early.

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🤓 Geeky News

🔤 Excel's latest text functions now generally available*

Excel's not just for crunching numbers or generating QR codes 😉. It can also transform text.

Last year, Microsoft introduced to Excel Insiders new functions that help with that:

• 3 REGEX functions that use regular expressions to extract and replace characters in a text string based on a pattern
• ​TRANSLATE and DETECTLANGUAGE that make it easier to prepare reports in international environment.

Now, they're rolling out to the Current channel.

The usual caveats apply: it's a gradual rollout - first to the current channel, then monthly, and finally semi-annual. Have patience.

Here's how you can check your update channel.

💻 No more "keep me signed in" prompts from Microsoft

From February, Microsoft will keep you automatically signed in to your Microsoft account.

It should be convenient for most users who log in only on their own devices.

But if you're using a public computer, you'll have to remember to sign out. Or just use a private session in the browser.

🧰 PowerToys gets a new old tool

​ZoomIt, a powerful screen zoom, annotation, and recording tool, is now part of PowerToys.

PowerToys is a suite of small but powerful utilities that make your Windows experience much better. It's from Microsoft but doesn't come pre-installed.

ZoomIt is not a new app. It's been around for a good while and has its loyal users. I often used it during corporate training sessions.

You can still get ZoomIt as a standalone download. But if you already have PowerToys, it will now be included when you update to the latest version.

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👏 Power Stories

Another thing that Excel does well is fixing messy data.

With Power Query (Get & Transform on the Data tab), you can clean up the data to prepare it for reporting. And why not automate the entire reporting workflow with the help of Power Automate and Office Scripts (also integrated into Excel)?

I love it when you take advantage of these tools - like Stephen, who completed our Automate with Power Query course.

I manage Wi-Fi upgrades as a contractor for NYC schools. Everything we do is MS Office, Excel, Teams, and PDFs. All our tracking data is on SharePoint/Excel. Most of the data is not normalized well, and column data types are not enforced. After this course, I was able to create normalized table reports for many of the tasks the field project management team needs to track, and a lot of people are using them regularly. While doing the course, I skipped nothing and did every exercise. I have not walked away from a lecture without knowing how to do the task at hand.

Stephen Azzarello, IT Project Manager

I think I'm not alone in this... You spend time on a report. You want it to be used. So it's fantastic to hear that Stephen's reports are getting traction. Congrats! 🙌

Got a success story about using your XelPlus skills? I’d love to hear it! Hit reply to share the details, and inspire other students 😇

See you next week,

Leila

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