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Microsoft 365 Insiders can now use REGEX functions in Excel

The features are introduced on May 21, 2024

5 min. read

Published onMay 21, 2024

published onMay 21, 2024

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Jake Armstrong, the product manager on the Excel team, announced that Microsoft 365 Insiders will be able to use three new functions: REGEXTEST, REGEXEXTRACT, and REGEXREPLACE, which employ Regular Expressions to help parse text.

With the announcement, Microsoft has added a warning, which says:

These are preview functions. Their signature and results may change substantially before being broadly released, based on your feedback. So, we do not recommend using these functions in important workbooks until they are generally available.

What are Regular expression (Regex) functions?

As mentioned in the official announcement, Regular expressions:

Regex are sequences of characters that define search patterns, commonly used for string searching and text parsing. They are incredibly versatile and are often used to check if a string contains a certain pattern, extract substrings that match the pattern, or replace substrings that match the pattern.

The new regex functions we are introducing are:

REGEXTEST

It checks if the pattern matches any part of the provided text, matches the pattern. If it matches, it says True, but if it fails, it returns with False.

The syntax of the function is: REGEXTEST(text, pattern, [case_sensitivity])

REGEXEXTRACT

REGEXEXTRACT lets you retrieve text from a string using a supplied regular expression. You can choose to extract the first match, all matches, or capture groups from the first match.

The syntax of the REGEXEXTRACT function is –REGEXEXTRACT(text, pattern, [return_mode], [case_sensitivity])

REGEXREPLACE

This function allows you to replace text from a string with another string on the basis of supplied regular expression.

The full syntax of REGEXREPLACE is –REGEXEXTRACT(text, pattern, [return_mode], [case_sensitivity])

Tips & tricks offered to use Regex functions easily

You can use Symbols, also known as Tokens, in regex patterns that match with various characters. Microsoft has listed some useful tokens:

You can also ask Bing Copilot for regex patterns. Microsoft also announced that they would be adding functionality for match mode arguments to use regex within XLOOKUP and XMATCH in the near future. In this regex pattern, it will be available as the lookup value.

These functions are now available for Beta Channel users with either Windows Version 2406 (Build 17715.20000) or later and Mac Version 16.86 (Build 24051422) or later.

Recently, Microsoft added a functionality that lets youchange your handwriting into text on Excel. To know more, check out this article.

What do you think about these new regex functions? Share your views with our readers in the comments section below.

With KB5043178 to Release Preview Channel, Microsoft advises Windows 11 users to plug in when the battery is low#

Copilot in Outlook will generate personalized themes for you to customize the app#

Microsoft will raise the price of its 365 Suite to include AI capabilities#

Death Stranding Director’s Cut is now Xbox X|S at a huge discount#

Outlook will let users create custom account icons so they can tell their accounts apart easier#

Microsoft 365 Insiders can now use REGEX functions in Excel#

What are Regular expression (Regex) functions?#

REGEXTEST#

REGEXEXTRACT#

REGEXREPLACE#

Tips & tricks offered to use Regex functions easily#