This new Microsoft Excel feature is so obvious we can’t believe it didn’t already exist
Add hyperlinks to your Microsoft Excel comments at last
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Microsoftis preparing an update forspreadsheet softwareExcel that rectifies an obvious shortcoming dating back a number of years.
According to anew entryin the company’s product roadmap,Excelwill soon allow users to drop hyperlinks into comments added to spreadsheets. Currently, links can only be added to comments in plaintext, so must be pasted manually into aweb browser.
The feature is currently under development, but should roll out to allMicrosoft 365users by the end of next month.
Hyperlinks in Excel comments
Given the simplicity and obvious utility of the new Excel feature, we found it difficult to believe it didn’t already exist. But lo and behold, a brief investigation revealed the current version will not allow the user to click through a link embedded in a comment thread, which adds unnecessary friction to the experience.
A quick search online reveals this is a problem Excel users have faced for years. Until now, people have had to rely on a rough-and-ready workaround to sidestep the issue.
As various online tutorials demonstrate, it is possible to add a hyperlink to a note (which is distinct from a comment) and pin that note to the sheet so it doesn’t disappear when the user mouses away from the associated cell. Microsoft Excel will then launch that URL in the default browser when someone clicks through via the note.
However, this method is neither particularly straightforward (it demands all existing formatting and any additional characters are removed from the note) nor particularly pretty, so the ability to simply drop a hyperlink into a comment thread will be welcome.
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The update can be considered part of the wider campaign to optimize Microsoft 365 apps for livecollaboration, in a world in which many people expect to either remain remote or adopt ahybrid workingmodel.
In December, for example, Microsoft rolled out aseries of improvementsfor the Excel web client, which can now support a wider range of files. Microsoft Outlook, meanwhile, received afeaturethat lets users specify whether they will attend a meeting in-person or throughvideo conferencingsoftware.
The company has even launched an entirely new collaboration app, calledLoop, which allows users to create portable components that move freely and stay in-sync across all Microsoft apps.
The new hyperlink facility for Excel is yet another piece of this same puzzle.
Joel Khalili is the News and Features Editor at TechRadar Pro, covering cybersecurity, data privacy, cloud, AI, blockchain, internet infrastructure, 5G, data storage and computing. He’s responsible for curating our news content, as well as commissioning and producing features on the technologies that are transforming the way the world does business.
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