Spreadsheet Formula Explainer
Explains every formula in a spreadsheet, in plain English. Upload an .xlsx file and every formula cell in it is picked out, sheet by sheet, with its cell reference and a plain-English explanation of what it does.
About this tool
Paste any Excel or Google Sheets formula and it’s rewritten as a plain-English sentence, with what each function does and warnings about common traps: a VLOOKUP doing an approximate match because its last argument is missing, volatile functions such as TODAY and INDIRECT, links to other workbooks, numbers typed straight into a calculation, and IFs nested so deep they’re hard to check. It understands sheet references, whole columns, table references such as Staff[Salary], and newer functions including XLOOKUP, FILTER and LET.
Or choose an .xlsx workbook to have every formula in it explained. A formula filled down a column counts once, with the cells it covers listed, and you can filter by sheet or search. Nothing is calculated and the file is never uploaded: it’s all done in your browser.
For a whole-workbook overview instead (sheets, tables, hidden sheets and how the sheets connect), use Explain This Spreadsheet.