Microsoft Excel to Get Value Tokens for Rich Data Formats

Microsoft Excel has long supported richer data types than just text and numbers, but it lacks a way to visually differentiate those types. That’s going to change.

“Microsoft Excel has continuously evolved to handle more than just plain text, numbers, and errors,” Gedion Alemayehu writes in the Microsoft Tech Community blog. “For example, we’ve introduced the ability to put stocks, geography, currencies, and formatted number values, among other data types, in cells, allowing them to hold richer data and connected information. However, these data types were not able to be shown in the formula bar in a cohesive way–until now.”

Microsoft is adding a feature called value tokens to Excel that will better differentiate rich data types in the formula bar. With this change, rich data types will be visually called out with a colored background and accompanying icon, providing “a clear visual indication that a cell contains a data type or other richer formats.”

Value tokens are coming to Excel for Windows first, starting with version 2502 build 18623.20020, which is currently available in the Microsoft 365 Insider program. And then this feature will come to Excel for Mac, Android, iPhone, iPad, and the web “soon.” In the future, Microsoft will also more deeply integrate this feature into Excel’s formula editing experience, Alemayehu says.