While Excel offers many formatting options to make your workbook visually appealing, manually formatting large datasets can be incredibly tedious. But Python can automate it with ease.

Discover how Python in Excel transforms data analysis with advanced features. Is it worth the hype? Find out if it’s right ...

Before going over their fundamental differences, let's address the main question. Yes, Python can do virtually everything Excel can. But it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison.

Initiating the Pivot Table: The pivot table is your report’s heart. It’s going to sit on a new sheet within the Excel file, ideally named after the year you’re analyzing – say, 2019.

Python and Excel can only really talk to each other through limited functions—xl() and =PY()—that can only return code results, not macros, VBA code, or other data, Microsoft claims.