Microsoft Excel to support multiple values per cell in new update

Microsoft is testing a major update to Excel that breaks a 40-year-old fundamental rule: the requirement of one value per cell. Senior Product Manager Jake Armstrong announced that the software will now support multiple values within a single cell through three primary features: Lists, Arrays in Cells, and Nested Arrays.

Lists allow users to input multiple items—separated by commas or semicolons—into one cell while maintaining the ability to filter by individual elements. Arrays can now exist natively within a cell as values or formula results, and can even be nested within other arrays to prevent truncation or errors.

To support these changes, Microsoft is introducing four new functions: - FLATTEN: Simplifies nested arrays by removing levels of nesting. - HAS: Checks if a specific value exists within an array. - HASANY: Checks if at least one of several specified values is present. - HASALL: Checks if all specified values are present.

These features are currently available only to users on the Microsoft Excel for Windows and Mac Beta Channels. While the update offers increased flexibility for complex data modeling, some experts suggest it could impact auditability or require updates to external software libraries like pandas and openpyxl that expect single-value cell outputs.