Microsoft adds new features to Excel on a regular basis and sometimes pens a deep-dive into individual capabilities too. Towards the end of each month, it also publishes a roundup of all the enhancements it made to the software during the past four weeks, and now, it has done the same for August 2024. The addition of these features helps retain existing customers while enticing new ones.

What features are available for all platforms?

This time around, there are three capabilities that have made their way to Windows, Mac, and the web. The first is the ability to leverage Copilot to create custom charts - including line, pie, stacked bar, clustered bar chart, and more -, PivotCharts, and PivotTables. As expected, you can prompt Copilot to create the exact type of chart or visualization that you want, and then configure various attributes like labels, axis, and titles, among other things.

Next, the AI software can summarize textual data to gain new insights, along with various adjustable configurations like tone and length. Lastly, Insiders can take advantage of dynamic watermarking through sensitivity labels powered by Microsoft Purview Information Protection. This allows customers to protect sensitive information against techniques like screenshots.

What features are exclusive to certain platforms?

A feature being made available just for Windows and Mac is new regex modes for XLOOKUP and XMATCH functions. This is something we already covered in detail earlier this month, but it's important to note that this capability is rolling out to Beta Channel Insiders for now.

Lastly, Excel for Windows is finally getting a feature that is already present on Mac and the web. Users can now filter comments based on @mentions, active, and resolved statuses. Microsoft has tagged this enhancement as "FIA (Feedback In Action)", which indicates that it was highly requested by customers. You can find out additional details in the blog post here.