Back in September 2023, Microsoft announced the availability of Python Editor in Excel, following support for the programming language itself a month earlier. It seems that the add-in is gaining popularity, as the Redmond tech firm has now revealed that it is expanding availability for the utility. The project is being rolled out to more users, which is something that we had speculated about earlier, given the potential use-cases for the tool.

What is Python Editor in Excel?

Python Editor is a Microsoft Garage project built by the Excel Labs team. For those unaware, software developed under this initiative can be integrated into existing products or become full-fledged products altogether.

Python Editor offers an integrated development environment (IDE) where users can write code to manipulate their Excel data and debug it as well. Up until now, it was available as an add-in through the Excel Add-ins Store, but now, Microsoft is rolling it out to more users.

What does expanded availability mean?

Due to Python Editor gaining traction among customers, Microsoft is integrating it directly into Excel as an in-the-box option, rather than an add-in. If you are a Beta Insider in Excel, click on the Editor button in the Formulas tab to access it, as long as you have access to Python in Excel.

In this latest release, the Redmond firm has improved some productivity features and the appearance of the IDE too. For those who haven't used Python Editor before, each cell in the sheet is treated like a separate code block, similar to Jupyter Notebook. Then, the output of each code block can be displayed directly in the sheet to augment the existing data too.

Customers can take advantage of features like code execution flow, IntelliSense, large code blocks, syntax highlighting, and more to write Python code in a more productive manner. That said, if you have feedback about this implementation, provide it through Help > Feedback.