Improve import of Excel sheets with empty rows and columns in Power Query and Power BI

When you import Excel sheets who have empty leading or trailing columns and rows (showing null-values), you can substantially improve the complexity and speed of your import process with a simple trick:

Remove the reasons for the empty trailing rows and columns 😉

Background

Usually, when you import data from an Excel sheet, Power Query will automatically detect the used range in a sheet and will just return those rows and columns who have content in it. So how can it come that in some cases, additional rows or columns are returned who have nothing but empty values in them?

Reason

The reason for it can be cell formatting of empty cells. They often occur in old workbooks where cells have been deleted. These cells will be returned with a null-value during the import process with Power Query. See this blogpost for more details of potential pitfalls that come with it.

Solution

The “Inquire” Excel Add-On lets you clean any excess cell formatting. After you’ve executed this command, Power Query will not import any of those leading or trailing empty rows or columns any more. Often this will reduce the file size of the Excel files dramatically as well.

Effects

You will benefit from:

• simpler query logic
• potentially huge improved import speed, due to the reduced file size

Enjoy and stay queryious 😉