Did you know that data analysts spend up to 80% of their time cleaning and preparing data? If you’re nodding in agreement, you’re not alone. The good news is that tools like Power Query in Excel and ...

is a senior editor and author of Notepad, who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years. Microsoft is overhauling Excel with the ability to support custom live data types.

Microsoft adds IMPORTTEXT and IMPORTCSV to Excel, letting users pull text files directly into the grid with simple formulas.