9 Microsoft Excel tools that make Google Sheets users jealous

There’s no doubt that Google Sheets has closed the gap on a ton of everyday spreadsheet tasks. However, Microsoft Excel still offers a handful of specialized power tools that set it apart. From automated data cleaning to heavy-duty optimization and brilliant layout tricks, these features are a big reason Excel still leads in many workflows.

Managing messy data imports from external sources usually turns into a nightmare of manual copying, scrubbing, and sorting. Excel handles this through Power Query, its built-in data transformation tool. You can plug it directly into PDFs, local folders, or massive corporate databases, slap a few filters on it, and watch it strip out errors and reformat the entire dataset automatically.

Google Sheets doesn’t have an equivalent integrated, low-code extract-transform-load (ETL) workflow for cleaning data before it hits your grid, leaving you stuck with tedious manual approaches, bloated formulas, or custom scripting just to keep your information uniform.

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Stop manually clicking checkboxes in Excel—automate them with formulas instead

The addition of native in-cell checkboxes to Excel in 2024 finally ended the era of clunky, floating checkboxes from the Developer tab. They’re simple to add and manually check—but this ease of use is a trap. If a human can toggle a checkbox, a single click can break a whole spreadsheet. For a pro-level workbook, your checkboxes should be driven by formulas, not people.

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