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Excel automation: macros, Office Scripts, or a saved job
"Automate Excel" usually means one of two things. Either a task inside a workbook you do by hand too often — formatting, copying ranges, building the same pivot — or a whole routine that starts with new files every month and ends with a report for someone else. The first is what macros and scripts are for. The second is where they tend to break.
The four usual ways
| Runs on | What you need | Good at | Breaks when | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VBA macros | Excel desktop, Windows and Mac (some features Windows only) | A macro-enabled workbook (.xlsm) and macros allowed | Anything you can click in a workbook, recorded or coded | A column moves, a sheet is renamed, or the file comes from someone else |
| Office Scripts | Excel for the web, and Microsoft 365 desktop on Windows and Mac | A commercial or education Microsoft 365 license, workbooks in OneDrive or SharePoint | Recorded steps in TypeScript; runs from a button or a Power Automate flow | Same as macros; not available on Microsoft 365 Personal or Family |
| Power Automate Desktop | Windows 10 and 11 only | A Windows machine that is on when the flow runs | Robotic clicks across Excel and other applications | Screens change, dialogs appear, or the machine is asleep |
| Python (or another language) | Anywhere | Someone who writes and maintains code | Anything, at any size | The person who wrote it leaves |
Requirements from Microsoft's documentation, checked September 30, 2026. Microsoft notes that script scheduling from inside Office Scripts is temporarily disabled; scheduled runs go through a Power Automate flow.
Automating a task in a workbook
If the job is "every time I open this file I do the same twelve clicks", record a macro (or an Office Script, if your organization prefers them) and edit the result. Excel's own tools are the right answer here, and nothing below replaces them.
Automating a monthly report
The monthly routine is a different shape. New files arrive — a bank export, a sales report per store, a timesheet — and you check them, match or merge them, sort out what doesn't fit, and send a report. A recorded macro replays clicks; it doesn't know what last month's file looked like. So the failures are quiet: a column renamed by the source system, a blank key, a file that arrived with half the usual rows. The macro still runs, and the report is still wrong.
What that routine needs is less "automation" than memory: the steps, what the files are supposed to look like, and what happened to the rows that didn't fit last time.
A saved job instead of a macro
TableDI 2 is a desktop app for file work you redo every period: it keeps your sources, rules and delivery as a job, so next month you drop in the new files and run it again. Everything runs on your own machine.
- Before it runs, a preflight compares this period's files with last period's: matching columns, renamed or missing ones, duplicate or blank keys, the row count against last time.
- The run applies the same steps every period — match on a key, compare amounts, summarize, computed columns — with no AI in the run.
- What doesn't fit waits on an Exceptions tab with the file and row it came from, instead of disappearing into a total.
- The delivery is an Excel report with summary, detail and exceptions sheets, or a CSV, in the folder you choose.
To be plain about what it is not: TableDI 2 is not an automation platform. It doesn't click through other applications, doesn't run on a timer, and doesn't edit your workbooks. The Jobs screen tells you when this period's files have landed in the job's folder; you press Process this period. It runs on macOS; Windows is in progress.
What it costs
Free has no time limit and no account: unlimited one-off tasks, export with no row limit, and one saved job you rerun every period. The lifetime edition is $99 once for one machine (movable) — or $49 for a year or $7.99 for a month, neither of which renews by itself; it adds more jobs, rules made from exceptions, carrying items to the next period, delivery templates and the history of every period.
Questions people ask
How do I automate an Excel report that I build every month?
If the report is built inside one workbook, record a macro or an Office Script. If it starts from new files every month, save the steps somewhere that also checks the new files before running — a Power Query with careful column handling, or a TableDI 2 job, which shows renamed or missing columns and row-count changes first and lists the rows that didn't match.
Can I automate Excel without macros?
Yes. Power Query records transformation steps and replays them on refresh; Office Scripts record actions in Excel for the web and Microsoft 365; and for recurring file work, a TableDI 2 job runs the same rules every period without code.
Do Office Scripts work with Microsoft 365 Personal or Family?
No. Office Scripts need a commercial or education Microsoft 365 license and workbooks stored in OneDrive for Business or SharePoint.
Do Excel macros work on a Mac?
VBA runs in Excel for Mac, but features that depend on Windows — ActiveX controls and Windows API calls, for example — don't. Power Automate Desktop is Windows only.
Related
Doing this every month?
In TableDI 2 you do it once, then save it as a job. Next month you drop in the new files and run it again.
macOS, Apple silicon and Intel; Windows is in progress (what to do meanwhile). Free is not a trial — no account, no card.
Last reviewed 2026-09-30 by the TableDI team. Something wrong on this page? Tell us — it is one inbox, read by the people who build TableDI.