Some members of the Microsoft 365 Insiders program can now try out the combination of Python's data analysis and visualization libraries, Excel's features and the Anaconda Python repository.

With this new feature, users can type in Python code in the Excel app. The calculations are then run on a Microsoft cloud server and are returned to the Excel app, with plots and visualizations.

The company is using the Anaconda Python distribution — running in Azure — to bring the most popular Python libraries to Excel, including the likes of Matplotlib and seaborn for data ...

Microsoft explains that the new functionality leverages the Anaconda distribution of Python, an enterprise geared to data scientists and engineers that is also beginner-friendly.