•2 min read•from Microsoft Excel | Help & Support with your Formula, Macro, and VBA problems | A Reddit Community
Data Validation dropdown arrow no longer visible on hover – replaced by Copilot icon?
After the latest Microsoft 365 Excel update, I'm seeing a UI change that affects Data Validation dropdowns.
Previously:
- When hovering over a cell with Data Validation (type = list), the small dropdown arrow was visible.
- Users could clearly see that the cell had a selectable list.
Now:
- On hover, the dropdown arrow is no longer visible.
- Instead, I only see the AI Copilot icon next to the cell.
I'm generating Excel files programmatically (Node.js, tested with both ExcelJS and xlsx-populate), and the behavior is the same across both libraries. That suggests this is coming from Excel's UI layer, not from how the file is generated.
I tested with:
- ExcelJS → dropdown arrow not visible on hover
- xlsx-populate → dropdown arrow appears normally on hover
My questions:
- Is this an intentional UI change related to Copilot integration?
- Is there any way to restore the dropdown arrow visibility on hover?
- Can Copilot be disabled at the workbook level (not locally per user)?
- Has anyone found a workaround to make dropdown cells visually obvious again?
This impacts usability because users don't immediately realize a cell has a list anymore.
[link] [comments]
Want to read more?
Check out the full article on the original site
Tagged with
#Excel alternatives for data analysis
#Excel compatibility
#financial modeling with spreadsheets
#big data management in spreadsheets
#generative AI for data analysis
#conversational data analysis
#real-time data collaboration
#intelligent data visualization
#rows.com
#enterprise-level spreadsheet solutions
#Data Validation
#dropdown arrow
#UI change
#Microsoft 365
#Copilot
#hover
#ExcelJS
#xlsx-populate
#selected list
#Node.js