Recently Microsoft announced Python support for Excel. This is a BIG news for everyone using Excel to analyze data or find insights. In this article, let me give you a proper introduction to the Python in Excel feature and how to use it.
If you prefer video, check out my Excel for Python is here video.
What is Python for Excel feature?
You can now write Python code natively in Excel cells and return the output as either Python objects or Excel values. For example, you want to perform quick statistical analysis of your sales data in the range A1:D10. You can use the below Python code to do this now.
=XL(“A1:D10”, headers=True).describe()
How do I enable Python for Excel?
This “preview” feature is only available with Excel 365 beta users as of September 2023.
If you have Excel 365, you can go to File > Account to enable “insider” program. More details on eligibility and instructions are here – https://insider.microsoft365.com/en-us/join/windows
After you’ve joined the program, update your Office from File > Account page.
After the update, if you have Python for Excel, it will show up in the formula ribbon, as depicted below.
If you don’t have it yet, just wait a few weeks. It will show up eventually.
How to use Python in Excel:
A Quick Tutorial
Open Excel and load any of your data files. Alternatively, if you need sample data, copy paste the below table into Excel.
| Sales Person | Product | Country | Date | Sales | Boxes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gigi Bohling | Manuka Honey Choco | India | 20-Jul-23 | 8162 | 742 |
| Barr Faughny | White Choc | Canada | 16-Aug-23 | 2485 | 355 |
| Marney O’Breen | Peanut Butter Cubes | India | 14-Jul-23 | 10255 | 733 |
| Wilone O’Kielt | Mint Chip Choco | India | 2-Jul-23 | 16800 | 800 |
| Gunar Cockshoot | Orange Choco | New Zealand | 2-Aug-23 | 2842 | 203 |
| Andria Kimpton | Baker’s Choco Chips | Canada | 18-Jul-23 | 9373 | 427 |
| Beverie Moffet | Fruit & Nut Bars | India | 14-Jul-23 | 6573 | 598 |
| Mallorie Waber | Baker’s Choco Chips | India | 24-Jul-23 | 3598 | 150 |
| Barr Faughny | Spicy Special Slims | Canada | 11-Jul-23 | 5138 | 571 |
| Dennison Crosswaite | White Choc | Canada | 22-Jul-23 | 1547 | 258 |
| Ches Bonnell | 99% Dark & Pure | New Zealand | 16-Aug-23 | 12901 | 993 |
| Andria Kimpton | Organic Choco Syrup | USA | 16-Jul-23 | 7161 | 651 |
| Gunar Cockshoot | Fruit & Nut Bars | New Zealand | 19-Jul-23 | 11935 | 1492 |
| Beverie Moffet | After Nines | India | 18-Aug-23 | 5089 | 268 |
| Gunar Cockshoot | Peanut Butter Cubes | USA | 11-Jul-23 | 9247 | 578 |
| Andria Kimpton | Peanut Butter Cubes | India | 22-Jul-23 | 10731 | 826 |
| Gigi Bohling | After Nines | Australia | 4-Jul-23 | 9730 | 609 |
| Gunar Cockshoot | Eclairs | USA | 1-Aug-23 | 3150 | 287 |
| Karlen McCaffrey | 99% Dark & Pure | USA | 6-Aug-23 | 2247 | 205 |
| Roddy Speechley | Peanut Butter Cubes | USA | 1-Jul-23 | 2765 | 213 |
| Brien Boise | Caramel Stuffed Bars | India | 3-Aug-23 | 7112 | 647 |
| Wilone O’Kielt | Organic Choco Syrup | UK | 27-Aug-23 | 3787 | 345 |
| Dennison Crosswaite | Peanut Butter Cubes | Canada | 29-Aug-23 | 2674 | 168 |
| Gigi Bohling | White Choc | India | 14-Aug-23 | 378 | 54 |
| Karlen McCaffrey | Raspberry Choco | Australia | 7-Jul-23 | 7217 | 401 |
| Marney O’Breen | Spicy Special Slims | New Zealand | 19-Aug-23 | 735 | 147 |
| Mallorie Waber | Organic Choco Syrup | UK | 3-Jul-23 | 4690 | 427 |
| Karlen McCaffrey | Manuka Honey Choco | India | 24-Jul-23 | 8008 | 572 |
| Wilone O’Kielt | Spicy Special Slims | Australia | 18-Jul-23 | 12586 | 2518 |
- Once you have some data in Excel, press CTRL ALT SHIFT P to enable Python mode. If you get a “welcome to Python screen” complete the tour and then press the shortcut again.
- Using your mouse or keyboard, select the data in your workbook. Excel should write the necessary XL() command to capture your data into Python as a dataframe.
- To see the dataframe you just built, press CTRL Enter. Excel will display a “Python Object” in the cell.
DATAFRAME: a dataframe is a python concept for storing data. They are like Excel tables. Each column of dataframe has one kind of data.
To see the output as values
instead of Python object
You can see the “actual” values of your Python code anytime. Just select the cell with Python output and either press CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+M or right click on the cell and choose “Python Output” > Excel values option.
10 Python Coding Examples
Use these code samples to play with Python in Excel. Before starting.
- Copy the above table of sample data and paste it in Excel (in range A1:F30). Alternatively, download this file with the data.
- To type the code, enter python mode (CTRL ALT SHIFT P) or use the formula =PY( in a cell.
Example 0
Construct dataframe 👩💻
df = xl("A1:F30", headers=True)
Explanation & Output 💻
This will just create a dataframe named df and return that to the cell. You can either leave it or see the underlying data (which will be same as A1:F30) by changing the output style.
Example 1
Description of the data 👩💻
df.describe()
Explanation & Output 💻
This will generate a dataframe with statistical descriptions for all your number columns. Example output is shown below.
Example 2
Description of the data, all columns 👩💻
df.describe(include="all")
Explanation & Output 💻
This will generate a dataframe with statistical descriptions for all your columns. Perfect for situations when you have some text, dates and numbers in your data. Sample output shown below:
Example 3
Unique Product Names 👩💻
df["Product"].unique()
Explanation & Output 💻
This will generate a python array (ndarray) that has all the product names with duplicate values removed.
Example 4
Add “Sales per Box” calculated column to the dataframe 👩💻
df["sales per box"]=df["Sales"]/df["Boxes"]
Explanation & Output 💻
This will add a new column [“sales per box”] to the dataframe with the calculation logic: sales divided by boxes. You can use the same approach to add many other columns
Example 5
Add “Sales as percentage” calculated column to the dataframe 👩💻
total_sales = sum(df.Sales)
df["Sales as a percentage"] = df["Sales"]/total_sales
df
Explanation & Output 💻
First, we calculate the “total_sales” and keep it in a variable. Then we use that variable to calculate the sales as a percentage.
💡 TIP: Do you notice the different ways in which you can refer dataframe columns? You can use dot notation (ex: df.Sales) or bracket notation (ex: df[“Sales”])
HOMEWORK PROBLEMS
Can you add below columns to the df dataframe?
- Sales value rounded to nearest thousand.
- Month number of the sales date
- Flag each record as “Canada” or “Non-Canada”
Example 6
Group Sales by Date and Show a Pivot 👩💻
df.groupby(by="Date").sum()
Explanation & Output 💻
This creates a default groupby (similar to pivot in Excel) of your data by showing totals by date. This will sum() all the number columns in your dataframe. See the below sample output.
Example 7
Group Sales by Date but only show Sales & Boxes columns 👩💻
df.groupby("Date")[["Sales", "Boxes"]].sum()
Explanation & Output 💻
This creates a customized groupby with Sales & Boxes columns totals by Date. Use this pattern when you don’t want to summarize certain things (like Sales per box).
Example 8
Create a bar graph with Daily Sales 👩💻
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.bar(df["Date"], df["Sales"])
Explanation & Output 💻
We import the plotting library matplotlib.pyplot and use that to generate a bar graph with default settings.
Sample output is shown below:
Example 9
Create a bar graph with Daily Sales – another method 👩💻
df_groups = df.groupby("Date")["Sales"].sum()
df_groups.plot(kind="bar")
Explanation & Output 💻
This code uses the built-in plotting function of the pandas library to generate the bar graph. Notice how this doesn’t show missing dates.
Sample output is shown below:
Example 10
Filter the dataframe to show all records where the product has the word “Choc” 👩💻
df[df["Product"].str.contains("Choc")]
Explanation & Output 💻
This code generates a new dataframe that contains all rows where the Product column has the word “Choc” in it.
MORE HOMEWORK PROBLEMS
- Can you filter all the records that have either “Choc” or “choc”?
- Create a bar graph of this data to show total sales by each product
How does Python in Excel work?
You need internet connection to run Python code in Excel. All the code you write is executed in Microsoft Cloud. This also means your data travels on the network to Microsoft Cloud and returns with the result.
What happens if your code has an error?
If there is an error in your Excel Python code, you will see a new error message #PYTHON! in Excel.
You will also see #BUSY! when Excel is running your Python code (in Microsoft Cloud).
In case of an error in your code, Excel automatically opens the Python Diagnostics tab and displays more information there.
Execution order of your code
The python code you write in Excel will run in row-major order. This means, the code runs row by row, left to right. See this illustration to understand the process.
Resources to Learn Python 🐍
Now that you are familiar with Python in Excel, you may want to learn more. May I suggest using the below approach.
- See if you can enable use Python in Excel to get a feel of the technology.
- Install a proper Python IDE like Anaconda, VS Code or something else to learn & practice Python properly.
- Understand the Python programming concepts like variables, conditions, list comprehension, dataframes and EDA. Here is a good article on the process.
- Apply these concepts on your own / business data to solidify your understanding.
- If you need practice datasets, try Kaggle.
📺 Python Videos
Python in Excel (video by Chandoo)
[NEW]
How to use Python as an Excel Person – FREE Masterclass + 3 Projects
[300k+ views, 1.5 hours long]
End to End data manipulation with Pandas – 10 Examples
[35k views, 18 mins]
📚 Python Books
- Python Crash Course 2nd Edition by Eric Matthes – https://amzn.to/3PBzYRK
This is the book we all (Jo, kids & I) read and really loved it. The explanations and examples are easy enough to get started. There is enough variety to please everyone.
- Automate boring stuff with Python – https://amzn.to/3Py5T5w
More practical if you want to get things done with Python. I read it a few times and really like the practicality of the book.
- Python Data Science Handbook – https://amzn.to/3MFKOUK
Python is particularly useful for doing data science & building machine learning models. This is an area of focus for me in the next months. I suggest getting the Python Data Science book once you have strong foundation in the language.
Note: I am using affiliate link for these books.
💻 Microsoft Resources
As part of the Python for Excel launch, Microsoft also added many resources and example pages to their website. Check out these pages.
32 Responses to “Extract Numbers from Text using Excel VBA [Video]”
Interesting that you are posting this at the same time as Doug http://yoursumbuddy.com/regex-function-sum-numbers-string/
Looks like two different articles about two different subjects, extracting numbers in text vs. summing all the numbers in text. Also, articles are published 20 days apart. Is the interesting part that there were two articles written about Visual Basic techniques within this month?
Sorry, that should have said 1 day, not 20. Was looking at the wrong thing. I still think it's just a nice coincidences to have multiple articles about VB written. Dick Kusleika also routinely writes about VB at dailydoseofexcel.com
What a lucky coincidence. I know about Doug's blog, but havent had a chance to read it in a while. Thanks for sharing the link.
I think that the best lesson that can come from the several salary survey solutions is that one should have anticipated the variety of monetary units. If the survey utilized drop down currency lists and limited the salary field to whole numbers only, etc. the resulting input would have been far cleaner. Sorry, Chandoo, but the messy input was, in my opinion, self-inflicted.
You are right. Since there are more than 200 different currencies, I thought a currency field would complicate the survey. The bigger problem was, Google Docs (which I used for survey) does not have an option to capture only numbers. Input fields were by text, so people entered in lots of different formats.
But I am happy how it turned out. It taught me several lessons on how to clean data.
Next time I will use a better tool to capture such responses.
Your post made me check how the "regular" and "irregular" decimal separators look like in different countries and it appears to be really interesting case. Take a look:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_mark
Cheers.
I am pretty sure you can replace this code block from your article...
If Text Like "*.*,*" Then
european = True
Else
european = False
End If
with this single line of code...
european = Format$(0, ".") = ","
Just to follow up on my previous post, I think I may have misunderstood the intent of your code. You were not looking to see if the computer system was using a dot for the decimal point, rather, you were looking to see if the Text was using a dot as the decimal point, weren't you? If so, then you could use this single line of code as to replace your If..Then..Else block...
european = Text Like "*.*,*"
But what if the number in Text was not large enough to display a thousands separator? Or what if it were a whole number? In either of those cases your original test, and my replacement for it, will fail. Maybe this would be a better test...
european = Right(Format$(Text, "."), 1) = ","
You are right. I am checking if the text has European format. And I loved your one line shortcut. I did not think of using LIKE in such context. Thanks for sharing that.
Again, you are right that this method would fail if the number is not big enough for a thousands separator. Since my data has annual salaries, all numbers are usually in thousands. So I did not think about it.
Hi ,
I have a question please. I'm working on a report that has alphanumeric on it and I only need to retrieve 7 integers that starts with 7 and 3 example SCM RIS PX RIS 02 - 7152349, ADSF\243434134, CM532345 and i need to get the 7152349. Can you please help me on this? I truly appreciate your help!
Thank you very much!
Hi-
The post was wonderful. Please take a look at this function also
Function ExtractNumber(InputString As String) As String
'Function evaluates an input string character by character
' and returns numeric only characters
'Declare counter variable
Dim i As Integer
'Reset input variable
ExtractNumber = ""
'Begin iteration; repeat for the length of the input string
For i = 1 To Len(InputString)
'Test current character for number
If IsNumeric(Mid(InputString, i, 1)) Then
'If number is found, add it to the output string
ExtractNumber = ExtractNumber & Mid(InputString, i, 1)
End If
Next i
End Function
Thank you so much. Your function code is amazing. It very useful for my lesson. Thank you so much.
To be more international.
At the beginning, for the rench format :
If fromThis.Value Like "*.*,*" Or fromThis.Value Like "* *,*" Then
european = True
End If
And at the end :
ElseIf ltr = "," And european And Len(retVal) > 0 Then
retVal = retVal & Application.DecimalSeparator
End If
Hi Chandoo,
Sorry, but your code does not work correctly with my Hungarian excel. My decimal separator is "," so
getNumber = CDbl(retVal)
will not convert the string to value, because you hard-coded "." as separator.
And, as you mentioned: "method would fail if the number is not big enough for a thousands separator" I would like to add: would fail if the user did not enter the thousand separator and also would fail if the thousand separator is not "," nor "." but " " (space chr) - as in Hungary.
This two functions could help to determine the system settings:
application.DecimalSeparator
application.ThousandsSeparator
Conclusion:
you say: "We do not need special treatment for regular format (61,000.30) as Excel & VBA are capable of dealing with these numbers by default." - it is true in case you system uses the regular format. 🙂
Cheers,
Kris
Awesome! It works !!
But how does one take into account negative numbers (say the list has negative numbers and I want to retain those negative numbers)
Thanks.
Hi. When I download this example, my excel is not showing formulas exactly. I wanted a ready version of this example, please. Thank you
Hi Chandoo,
Thanks for this brilliant article like many others that you have written for the benefit of many. Unfortunately, I am constantly having problems downloading your sample workbooks. I am currently using Excel 2007, and each time I try to download any of your sample workbooks, for e.g. the 'Extract Numbers Using VBA workbook', I get the following message 'This file is not in a recognizable format'.
I always get this message each time I try to download any of your sample workbooks. Please kindly advise me on how to resolve this.
Thank you.
Kenny
I have numbers like 12345-12-1 which I want to extract from text strings. 12345 might be variable there as 123, 1234, 12345, 123456,1234567 or so. When I get that in other cell (Column) I should see multiple entries of similar numbers with - (hyphen). How to do that?
@Madhav
Assuming your data is in cell A1
=LEFT(A1,FIND("-",A1)-1)
Thanks Hui for your response. Thank you for your time to find potential solution for my problem.
I tried your formula but was not successful in using the same.
here is more clarification so that you/others could help me.
Column A has following in Cells A1 to A4.. could be long..
ABCD 12345-12-1 XYZ 9878-02-9
LMNOPQ 12345-12-1 STQ 789748-98-5
NFHFKDJFKDS 123-23-1, NDKANSD
A FDSAFNDS 12345-12-1, ASNDSAND
from such data I need to extract the number with hyphens
remove , immediately after the numbers, separate the numbers with spaces
Column B shall look like:
12345-12-1 9878-02-9
12345-12-1 789748-98-5
123-23-1
2345-12-1
2 separate strings (numbers) having hyphen (-) therein should be separated with space.
@Madhev
Have a look at a solution using a simple UDF
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zexf4t9tmxmt3m9/Get_Numbers.xlsm?dl=1
Thanks Hui that worked well with the examples I provided.
I should have given following type of example:
2-ABCD 12345-12-1 X-2-YZ 9878-02-9
in the above case I do not want to extract a number and hyphen which is connected to or is part of text string..
Can you please help me modify the code to ignore numbers and - with text string.?
Thanks in advance.
@Madhav
So what is the answer expected from
2-ABCD 12345-12-1 X-2-YZ 9878-02-9
Thanks for your interest and time Hui.
so when I have text like
2-ABCD 12345-12-1 X-2-YZ 9878-02-9 3-abc-4-efg in Cell A2
in B2 the answer should be only numbers with hyphens and no text with numbers or hyphens
12345-12-1 9878-02-9 OR
12345-12-1 some delimiter (, or 😉 9878-02-9
The logic I thought was (but unable to do)
1. remove all strings containing text (and - and numbers) and then extract only numbers containing hyphens
2. Extract numbers in only following format ( # is a digit below) and ignore numbers and hyphens in any other format
#######-##-#
######-##-#
#####-##-#
####-##-#
###-##-#
##-##-#
Hope this helps.
Why not just use the function =getNumber ?
=getnumber doesn't extract numbers with hyphens..
also need to ignore numbers and hyphens associated with text string
When I use this code that code give me error
cdb1 is not highlight can u explain me
@Deepak
It runs fine for me
Select the first line and Press F9 to set a stop point
goto a cell and edit the function and press Enter
Then you can step through the code when it runs using F8
report back what happens
HI,
How can we add spaces between numbers and removing decimals.
how can we make spaces in the reesult e.g 25 655 2335
Dear Team,
I need to extract number (cheque number) from a cell (some numbers may repeat that to be ignored),
Text is - :-Inward Clg Cheque 00992924 00992924,BD
Result should be - 992924
Kindly help in getting formula for this (please email the code or VBA Code)