Posts about Formulas.
Joining a column of names or tags into one comma-separated string used to need TEXTJOIN or a helper column. REDUCE does it in one formula, and lets you transform each item before it gets concatenated.
LAMBDA, MAP, REDUCE, SCAN, BYROW. These are functional programming primitives. Excel is shipping them one by one, and most users are still writing nested IFs. The spreadsheet you learned in 2015 has been quietly replaced by something much more powerful.
MAP takes your LAMBDA and runs it on every element in an array. No helper columns, no dragging formulas, no VBA loops. It's the Excel equivalent of a functional programming pattern, and once you've used it, going back to column-by-column formulas feels like a step backwards.
BYROW hands your function an entire row at a time. BYCOL does the same by column. Together they replace an entire category of 'drag this formula down and keep it updated' work — and when you combin…
XLOOKUP, LET, LAMBDA, BYROW, SCAN, MAP — Microsoft shipped more genuinely useful functions in the last three years than in the previous decade. If you learned Excel before 2022 and haven't revisite…
BYROW hands your function an entire row at a time — which means 'apply this logic to every row in this range' is one formula in one cell. No dragging, no CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER, no missing the last row w…
Helper columns aren't wrong. But when a running total requires three of them and breaks every time someone inserts a row, you've created fragility in exchange for familiarity. The Excel array funct…
You'll build a balance tracker using SCAN and a structured table that extends itself as new rows come in. No helper columns, no fragile cell references, no 'just re-paste the formula down.' Add a r…
Running totals used to mean helper columns or array gymnastics. SCAN changes that — it applies a function cumulatively across an array and hands you back every intermediate result. Once you see it …
SCAN hands you every intermediate result as it accumulates — which means a running total is one formula that spills down the column. No helper rows, no dragging, no breaking when someone inserts a …
The counter-argument to 'if your formula needs a scrollbar to read, it's wrong.' With LAMBDA, complexity lives in one named place and gets called cleanly everywhere else. The formula in your cell c…
You'll build a named LAMBDA called OVERDUE that takes a date and a threshold and returns a clean status label. Then you'll call it in three different tables in the same workbook. By the end, you'll…
Before LAMBDA, every Excel function that existed was one Microsoft decided to write. After LAMBDA, you can write them yourself — naming the logic, hiding the complexity, and calling your custom fun…
One function definition in the Name Manager, and every cell in the workbook can call it like a built-in. LAMBDA + named functions means you stop copy-pasting logic and start writing like someone wh…
Complex formulas aren't the problem. Unreadable ones are. Before LET, you had to repeat the same range reference six times or accept that your formula was a black box. LET gives you named variables in
One tweak to your most-used formula and it suddenly reads like plain English. LET() lets you name the messy middle parts — so next month's you won't need to reverse-engineer what current you was …
It works, so why change it? Because every workaround you've added to compensate for VLOOKUP's limits is technical debt in your spreadsheet - and it compounds. The cost isn't visible until somethi…
Stop replacing VLOOKUPs. Your workbook deserves XLOOKUP without touching the formula.
I spent years writing 400-character Ctrl+Shift+Enter arrays just to filter a table, but the calculation engine finally changed the rules and killed that misery for good.