8 Ways to Use Excel Beyond Spreadsheets

Most people only use Excel as a tool to organize data, but its versatility goes far beyond spreadsheets. You can use it to play fun games, create beautiful works of art, and even organize your life using it as a calendar.

1. Play classic games

One of the coolest things you can do with Excel is turn it into a gaming platform with a little creativity and some basic formulas. For example, you can create a Tic-Tac-Toe game by customizing cells to form a grid and using formulas to track the player's moves.

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If you're feeling adventurous, you can try creating games like Minesweeper, Snake, or Pac-Man, with the help of VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) scripts. You don't have to start from scratch either - many Excel game templates are available online.

2. Solve Sudoku puzzles

In addition to classic games, you can turn an Excel spreadsheet into an interactive Sudoku solver. A notable example comes from Reddit user /u/KrakenOfLakeZurich, who designed an impressive Sudoku solver entirely in Excel using only formulas and conditional formatting. This setup turns a basic spreadsheet into a dynamic puzzle solver, where you enter the given numbers of a Sudoku puzzle and Excel fills in the blanks.

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Excel's conditional formatting visually highlights valid moves, while formulas ensure Sudoku rules are followed - no repeating numbers in rows, columns, or grids.

3. Edit image

One of the lesser-known but surprisingly powerful features in Excel is the ability to edit images. It goes beyond the basic cropping, rotating, and resizing options – Excel offers other editing tools to enhance your images.

After inserting an image into your Excel spreadsheet, you can go to the Picture Format tab , where you'll find options to apply shadows, reflections, and soft edges to create a more polished, professional look. Like other Office applications, Excel also includes Picture Styles , which allow you to apply various borders and 3D effects to your images.

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These options can be really useful if you're in a pinch and need to quickly improve an image - whether it's adjusting the style or even removing the background. Once you're done editing, you can save the image by right-clicking on it and selecting Save as Picture .

4. Create Artwork

This may sound unusual—or even strange—but Excel's AutoShape feature can help you create stunning works of art. One of the most famous examples of this is Tatsuo Horiuchi, a Japanese artist who turned Excel into his canvas. Using tools like AutoShape, Horiuchi created intricate landscapes that proved that Excel is more than just for calculations.

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To create your own artwork, go to Insert > Illustrations > Shapes and use Excel's line tool as a precision tool to sketch out complex shapes or outlines. Then, pair it with Excel's fill tool for shading and coloring, turning your spreadsheet into a canvas.

For a creative approach, you can use Excel's grid structure as your canvas. By resizing cells into small squares, you can turn each cell into a "pixel" and color it differently to create anything from simple designs to complex, mosaic-like images.

5. Generate a password or random number

You don't have to rely on online password generators to create strong passwords. Excel's built-in functions like RAND and RANDBETWEEN can help you generate complex, random passwords in seconds. For example, to create a random 8-character password that includes letters, numbers, and special characters, you can use the following formula:

=TEXTJOIN("", TRUE, CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(33,126)), CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(33,126)), CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(33,126)), CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(33,126)), CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(33,126)), CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(33,126)), CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(33,126)), CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(33,126)))

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Additionally, you can use Excel's RAND, RANDBETWEEN, and RANDARRAY functions to generate random numbers. This is especially useful when you need to select winners from a list of entries, generate random samples for surveys, or assign numbers to sweepstakes entrants.

6. Send mass emails

If you need to send personalized mass emails to a group of recipients, Excel can help. With Mail Merge, you can easily customize and send mass emails directly from Microsoft Word, using data stored in an Excel spreadsheet.

To do this, you'll first need to organize your recipients' details — like names, email addresses, and other personalized information — into columns in Excel. Then, you'll need to create an email draft in Word and link to your Excel file via Mail Merge . This feature lets you insert personalized fields (like names, addresses, or specific offers) into your email template, ensuring each person receives a tailored message.

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Once everything is set up, Mail Merge will automatically fill in the details for each recipient, and you can send personalized emails in bulk – all from within Word. While this process takes a bit of time and effort to set up, it can save you hours when sending personalized emails to large groups.

7. Create custom forms

Excel can be a powerful tool for creating interactive, fillable forms, whether they're surveys, questionnaires, or feedback forms. To get started, you'll need to enable the Developer tab , which gives you access to a variety of form controls like text boxes, checkboxes, and drop-down menus.

Once enabled, you can add various controls to your form by selecting them from the Controls group . For example, you can insert check boxes for yes/no questions or drop-down lists for multiple choice choices.

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After you design a form, you can ensure data integrity by protecting your worksheet. You can customize protection settings to control user interaction, such as allowing users to fill out a form while preventing other changes.

8. Create a personal calendar

If you like using Excel, why not turn it into your personal calendar? Excel offers a variety of templates for daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly planning that you can easily customize. Just choose a template you like, then adjust the layout to fit your work or personal schedule.

The main advantage of using Excel as a calendar is the level of customization it offers. You can modify colors, fonts, and even apply conditional formatting to highlight important dates, meetings, or tasks. This allows you to create a calendar that is not only functional, but also visually appealing.

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Overall, the potential of Excel goes far beyond managing numbers and data. Take the time to explore its creative applications and who knows, you might unlock a whole new level of productivity and creativity.

Marvin Fry

Update 03 February 2025