3 ms·
seriously though, I think a copilot-like ML to improve flash fill is a genuinely amazing idea which could save insane hours, especially with people less familia
by armchairhacker 4y ago
seriously though, I think a copilot-like ML to improve flash fill is a genuinely amazing idea which could save insane hours, especially with people less familiar with complex formulas/coding
- evandwight 4y agoSomeone just created that! https://excelformulabot.com/ https://excelformulabot.com/ Apparently Microsoft is creating a plugin. (Not affiliated)
- armchairhacker 4y agoNot quite what I meant. Basically you fill in some cells, and then expand the region and Excel will autofill. For example if you have Full Name | Nickname Smith, John | Johnny Ayers, Danielle | Dani McDougle, Jack | Jack Jason, Charles | James, Trent | Myers, Jessica | David, Katherine | And if you select the first 4 entries on the right and drag down, it will fill in the last 4. This is known as flash fill and already implemented: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/using-flash-fill-in-excel-3f9bcf1e-db93-4890-94a0-1578341f73f7 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/using-flash-fill-.... Except AFAIK it still uses hard-coded pattern recognition. This is exactly the type of thing ML is good for!
- nl 4y agoGoogle Sheets has this and it works really well. I had an idea Excel had something as well but maybe not?