Create an Excel + Python word cloud

Published: 18 September 2025
on channel: Andrew Moss

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Word clouds are a clever way to visualise text data, but they've always been tricky to build in Excel without relying on add-ins or VBA.

However, since Python integration landed, it's become a lot easier.

In the example, a collection of hotel reviews is housed in A3:A32.

To generate a word cloud in A1, start by typing =PY( to enter Python mode and then paste in the following code:

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Import WordCloud class from wordcloud library
from wordcloud import WordCloud

Pull in reviews from A3:A32 using xl()
reviews_cells = xl("A3:A32")

Merge all reviews into one text string, each separated by a space
reviews_text = ' '.join(reviews_cells[0])

Generate and display word cloud
WordCloud(background_color='white').generate(reviews_text).to_image().show()

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Press Ctrl + Return to confirm the code.

For the output to render inside the cell, change the Python Output option (next to the formula bar) to 'Excel Value'.

For customisation, the WordCloud library has parameters for formatting and styling.

For example, in the WordCloud class, use:

👉 background_color='yellow' for a yellow background.
👉 stopwords=set() to include insignificant words like "the", "and", and "was".
👉 min_word_length=10 to only include words with a letter length of 10 or greater.

The full list can be found here: https://amueller.github.io/word_cloud....

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Where to find me:

Website — https://andrewmoss.me
LinkedIn — / andrewcharlesmoss

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