Build a Five-Minute Audit of What Survived the Copilot Cull
On 15 April 2026 the Copilot button vanished from Excel with no in-app notice. This is the dated six-row audit of which surfaces still answer you, which refuse, and which never could.
Getting Started
// 15 postsTutorials, tips, and deep dives on Getting Started — every post from bianca.codes tagged Getting Started.
Getting Started posts
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A structured table reference isn't a range, it's a promise your formula makes about tomorrow's data
Table1[Sales] looks like a notation change from A1:A847. It isn't. It's a different kind of reference, one that keeps its promise after next month's rows show up.
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Styles aren't formatting, they're the document talking to itself
You already know how to make a line bold and blue, which is exactly why the sixty-page document that needs a table of contents by five o'clock is a problem.
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Build a self-filtering Excel dashboard with FILTER, SORT, and structured table references, no PivotTable required
No refresh button, no PivotTable, just a dropdown and a formula that already knows your table changed.
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Triggers aren't events, they're a question your flow keeps asking
Most Power Automate flows get debugged wrong because triggers aren't events, they're either a standing question your flow keeps asking, or a subscription waiting to be told.
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Power Query from Scratch, Part 5: Parameters, functions and a model that refreshes itself
A hardcoded folder path and a copy-pasted business rule are the same problem, and parameters plus functions are how you stop editing M code every month.
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VAR: the DAX keyword that makes your measures readable
A DAX measure that repeats the same subtotal three times isn't thorough, it's a maintenance problem VAR was built to fix.
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A week of actually using Copilot: what a beginner discovers (and what trips them up)
Seven days actually driving Copilot across Excel, Word and PowerPoint - the wins, the confidently wrong deck, and the habit that mattered more than any prompt.
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Power Query from Scratch, Part 4: Custom columns and your first look at M
Three parts of buttons, then a request that needs an 'and' the Conditional Column dialog doesn't have - time to type your first line of M.
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Build a mail-merge report in Word straight from an Excel table
One clean Excel table and a Word template are all it takes for forty personalised reports, once the wizard is driven properly.
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Copilot in Excel: the moment it clicks for a beginner
The first time a plain-English request turns into a real, inspectable Excel formula, the tool stops feeling abstract - and the habit that keeps it honest.
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Power Query from Scratch, Part 3: The transforms that actually matter
Unpivot, split column and group by all look foolproof, right up until the source file adds a column or a name gets typed slightly differently than expected.
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Learn Python, or learn to drive Copilot? A beginner's honest fork in the road
Two tabs open, four spare hours a week, and everyone insisting the other tab is a waste of your time - here's the no-hype version of the beginner's fork.
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Power Query from Scratch, Part 2: Importing and combining without the copy-paste
Files, folders, and multiple sheets go in three different ways, and the append-versus-merge decision is where most people guess wrong.
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Stop reading Copilot hot takes and just open the thing
Most Copilot opinions come from people who've never clicked into it. Open the thing for an afternoon and form one that's actually yours.