Real-world example for Copilot:

Copilot is the best personal assistant I could imagine. Copilot can handle the mundane tasks when you give plain-language instructions.? Here’s my struggle today--I received a long list of items (about 50) in a text paragraph and needed to work with them in Microsoft Excel, one item per row. ?

I needed to take this:

Apple; Banana; Orange; Strawberry; Grape; Watermelon; Pineapple; Mango; Blueberry; Raspberry; Peach; Pear; Kiwi; Lemon; Avocado; Cherry; Grapefruit; Plum; Papaya; Blackberry; Cantaloupe; Fig; Pomegranate; Apricot; Lime; Cranberry; Guava; Lychee; Passion Fruit; Dragon Fruit; Pineapple; Coconut; Tangerine; Clementine; Persimmon; Nectarine; Honeydew Melon; Kiwifruit; Starfruit; Gooseberry; Boysenberry; Elderberry; Mulberry; Loganberry; Quince; Durian; Jackfruit; Plantain.

And end with this:

To do this directly in Excel is a multi-step process: ?Use the Data>Text to Column, then use the Copy > Paste Transpose, then @Trim() out the leading/trailing spaces and then finally Sort A->Z. ?And I still got stuck with a trailing "." after the last item—Plantain.

This works, but it's a moderately-advanced Excel user who can do it! (By the way to my #Excel expert friends, if there's a better way, please SHARE in the comments!)

I know that many would give up and just re-type the whole list. (Be honest and give this post a ??if this is you!!!)

But what if Copilot could do this for you? ??

Please break this list of fruit into one item per line.? Sort alphabetically.  
Apple; Banana; Orange; Strawberry; Grape; Watermelon; Pineapple; Mango; Blueberry; Raspberry; Peach; Pear; Kiwi; Lemon; Avocado; Cherry; Grapefruit; Plum; Papaya; Blackberry; Cantaloupe; Fig; Pomegranate; Apricot; Lime; Cranberry; Guava; Lychee; Passion Fruit; Dragon Fruit; Pineapple; Coconut; Tangerine; Clementine; Persimmon; Nectarine; Honeydew Melon; Kiwifruit; Starfruit; Gooseberry; Boysenberry; Elderberry; Mulberry; Loganberry; Quince; Durian; Jackfruit; Plantain.        

And Copilot will automatically figure out that the ";" is the field delimiter, sort the list, and remove the trailing “.” from Plantain.

Simple, elegant, and easy to explain in plain language.

So thank you Copilot for saving me from retyping and lots of fun Excel transfigurations.

Get started and try it at copilot.microsoft.com for free.

#Copilot #MicrosoftCopilot #MSFTAdvocate