Excel formula generator
Describe the result you want in ordinary language. You get a formula that runs in Excel or Google Sheets, an explanation of each part, and a note on what will break it.
How to generate an Excel formula from a description
- 1
Describe the result, not the formula
Name your columns and say what the cell should contain. "Total the Amount column where Region is West and Status is not Cancelled" is enough. You do not need to know which function it takes.
- 2
Pick Excel or Google Sheets
The two dialects differ in more than syntax — Sheets has ARRAYFORMULA and QUERY, Excel has LET and the 365 dynamic array family. The switch changes which the generator reaches for.
- 3
Read the 'Watch out for' section
This is where locale separators, absolute versus relative references, and off-by-one ranges get called out. It is the part that saves the debugging session.
- 4
Copy it in and check one row
Paste the formula, then verify it against a row where you already know the answer. A model can be confidently wrong, and one spot-check catches it.
What makes a description the generator can use
The generator is reading your description, not your spreadsheet. It cannot see your column headers, your data types, or where your table starts, so anything it needs to know has to be in the sentence.
The descriptions that work name the columns and state the condition: "average Score by Department, ignoring blanks" beats "average by group". If your data starts on row 4 or your lookup table lives on another sheet, say so — otherwise you will get A1-based ranges you have to rewrite.
Ambiguity gets resolved rather than questioned. If two readings are possible the generator picks the common one and says which in the explanation, so read that line before pasting.
Excel and Google Sheets are not the same language
Most functions carry over, but the gaps are the ones that cost time. XLOOKUP, LET, LAMBDA and the dynamic array family arrived in Microsoft 365 and are absent from older Excel; Sheets has had ARRAYFORMULA for years and answers many of the same problems differently.
Going the other way, QUERY has no Excel equivalent at all, and rewriting a QUERY as FILTER plus SORT plus CHOOSECOLS is usually three formulas where Sheets needed one.
Set the switch before you generate rather than translating afterwards. The generator also flags when a formula needs a specific Excel version, which matters if the sheet is going to a colleague on 2019.
Where AI-generated formulas go wrong
The failure mode is not gibberish — it is a plausible formula with one wrong argument. A col_index_num off by one, a range that should have been absolute, a criteria string that needs quotes it did not get.
Three habits catch nearly all of it: check one row where you already know the answer, look at what happens on an empty cell, and confirm the range covers the rows you will add next month rather than only the rows there today.
Nested formulas deserve more suspicion than simple ones. If the answer comes back four functions deep, consider asking for a helper column version instead — easier to verify, and easier for whoever inherits the sheet.
Excel and Google Sheets equivalents
| Task | Excel | Google Sheets | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lookup a value | XLOOKUP / VLOOKUP | XLOOKUP / VLOOKUP | Same, but XLOOKUP needs Excel 365 or 2021 |
| Filter rows by condition | FILTER | FILTER or QUERY | QUERY has no Excel equivalent |
| Spill a list of unique values | UNIQUE | UNIQUE | Excel 365 / 2021 only |
| Apply a formula down a column | Dynamic arrays (automatic) | ARRAYFORMULA(...) | Sheets needs the wrapper, Excel spills on its own |
| Split text into columns | TEXTSPLIT | SPLIT | TEXTSPLIT is Excel 365 only |
| Join text with a delimiter | TEXTJOIN | TEXTJOIN or JOIN | TEXTJOIN needs Excel 2019+ |
| Name an intermediate value | LET | — | No Sheets equivalent; repeat the expression |
| Match with a regular expression | REGEXTEST (365, 2024+) | REGEXMATCH | Both run RE2: no lookbehind |
Formula generator FAQ
- Do I need an account?
- No. There is no sign-up anywhere on this site. You get 20 generations a day per IP address, reset at midnight UTC.
- Can it see my spreadsheet?
- No, and it does not upload anything. It only reads the sentence you type, which is why naming your columns in the description makes such a difference to the result.
- Which Excel version do the formulas target?
- Excel 2016 and later by default. When a formula needs Microsoft 365 or 2021 — XLOOKUP, LET, TEXTSPLIT, the dynamic array functions — the answer says so, so you find out before you send the file to someone on an older build.
- Can it write array formulas?
- Yes. Ask for one explicitly if you want it, or describe a result that requires spilling and you will get a dynamic array formula in Excel or an ARRAYFORMULA in Sheets.
- Why did it give me a helper column instead of one formula?
- Because a single formula would have been unreadable. When that happens the answer says so. If you would rather have the one-liner anyway, ask for it directly.
- Is the output safe to use at work?
- The formula is yours to use however you like. The thing to be careful about is the input: do not paste confidential data into this or any other AI tool. Describing your columns is fine; pasting the rows is not necessary.