The Excel formula bar now has monospaced font support for Windows Beta Insiders

1 year ago

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Microsoft is once again adding a feature in its Excel spreadsheet program that it probably should have added a long time ago. Earlier this month it added a way to see stale cells crossed out in manual calculation mode. Today, it's adding an improvement to the app's formula bar.

In a blog post, Microsoft admits that it has been sometimes hard to read and edit characters in the formula bar because some of the formulas could get very complex. Now, a new update for Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel has added support for monospaced font in the formula bar,

What is monospaced font? Microsoft says that this is a type of font where every character has the same width, no matter its shape or style. Microsoft says that the use of a monospaced font in the Excel formula bar "means that your formulas will be aligned and spaced evenly, making them easier to read and debug."

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The blog post offers an example of the formula bar using a traditional font, and one which is using a monospaced font. The latter version definitely looks easier to read, and we would imagine it's much easier to work with for Excel formula creators.

In addition to just making formulas easier to read in the Excel formula bar, Microsoft points out a number of other advantages of using a monospaced font.

Monospaced fonts offer consistent alignment, making it easier to quickly spot errors, typos, and discrepancies in code. This uniform spacing enhances visual parsing of complex structures, aiding in identifying patterns, nested levels, and relationships within the logic.

Monospaced fonts offer streamlined copy-pasting of code from different sources while maintaining formatting. They also ensure a uniform appearance across various platforms and editors, guaranteeing consistent readability and structure.

The new features is, as we said, available for Windows Insiders in the Canary channel right now. It will be rolled out to the Windows Excel app first, and other platforms will get the monospaced font support for the formula bar at some point in the future.

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