US 11,900,133 B2
Discovery and suggestions for unstructured tables in spreadsheets
Ehab Sobhy Deraz, Bellevue, WA (US); and Brenton Aihe Milne, Bellevue, WA (US)
Assigned to MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC, Redmond, WA (US)
Filed by Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA (US)
Filed on Dec. 1, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/539,798.
Prior Publication US 2023/0168910 A1, Jun. 1, 2023
Int. Cl. G06F 40/00 (2020.01); G06F 9/451 (2018.01); G06F 16/22 (2019.01); G06F 40/106 (2020.01); G06F 40/18 (2020.01)
CPC G06F 9/453 (2018.02) [G06F 16/2282 (2019.01); G06F 40/106 (2020.01); G06F 40/18 (2020.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A computing apparatus comprising:
one or more computer readable storage media;
one or more processors operatively coupled with the one or more computer readable storage media; and
program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media that, when executed by the one or more processors, direct the computing apparatus to at least:
cause a spreadsheet to be displayed in a user interface;
pre-obtain metadata from a remote service that pre-identifies an unstructured table in the spreadsheet, wherein the metadata includes a range of cells belonging to the unstructured table in the spreadsheet, and wherein the unstructured table is not formatted as a table;
detect a user action in the spreadsheet after having pre-obtained the metadata;
identify an active cell associated with the user action;
determine, based on the range of cells identified in the pre-obtained metadata, that the active cell belongs to the unstructured table;
in response to determining that the active cell belongs to the unstructured table, cause a suggestion component to be displayed in the user interface; and
in response to a selection of the suggestion component, display at least a preview of a suggested table feature in the user interface.