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New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

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Re: New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

#61

Post by grahamburger »

gdulli wrote: post #24

I'm at my first company that uses Google apps and it's been a bad experience. There's so much about email and calendaring that Outlook/Exchange got right that it's hard to be without it after taking it for granted. Using a native rich application is always going to be superior to building a web app on top of a browser. Once you're used to real applications, Gmail and the other apps aren't suitable for anything more t…

Wow that is so far from my own personal experience it's difficult for me to understand. I am occasionally forced to use Outlook and/or Excel and it tends to ruin a large part of my day. Real time collaboration isn't just a cute convenience, it's the primary staple of my workflow. Strange to have such differing experiences.

Re: New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

#62

Post by csmuk »

xhrpost wrote: post #50
csmuk wrote: post #34

Fed up of all the Google Docs fanfare... Excel features... fast - check. Powerful - check. Works offline - check. Let's get a little closer to google docs... Works online - check. Edit in browser - check. Edit on mobile device - check. Share with other people - check. Cheap - check (o365 sub is really cheap per seat). Can customise the UI - check. Can deal with huge sheets - check. Can extend, script etc - check. Goo…

I use MS Office occasionally at work but even that small amount of usage has me wanting to use Google Docs instead. -Someone has the Excel file open on the network? Oh, read-only for you my friend. Have to save? Better track down whoever has it open. -No revision/change tracking. Have to always be alert as to who is changing what and when. Often simpler just to make a new file and add to the clutter on the network fo…

You're doing it wrong.

sharepoint/svn avoids these issues.

Re: New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

#63

Post by VikingCoder »

oftenwrong wrote: post #52
gdulli wrote: post #24

I'm at my first company that uses Google apps and it's been a bad experience. There's so much about email and calendaring that Outlook/Exchange got right that it's hard to be without it after taking it for granted. Using a native rich application is always going to be superior to building a web app on top of a browser. Once you're used to real applications, Gmail and the other apps aren't suitable for anything more t…

>Using a native rich application is always going to be superior to building a web app on top of a browser. Always? You think that will be true 20 years from now?

People forget that you used to boot your PC into a game disk to play a game. When people started playing games in Windows (full-screen), people like the grandparent poster would RAIL that booting to a game disk would always be superior to building a game on top of Windows.

Re: New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

#64

Post by jcampbell1 »

As an ex-excel power user, this is a huge step in the right direction. F4/F2 now seem to work. Unfortunately there is no way to turn of editing directly in cells. There are strange bugs like auto column sizing doesn't work correctly. Merging cells is a cancer, it would be nice if the drop down offered centering across selection.

While this is still not Excel for windows, it feels better than Excel on the Mac. I think I will start using it.

Re: New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

#65

Post by VikingCoder »

xhrpost wrote: post #50
csmuk wrote: post #34

Fed up of all the Google Docs fanfare... Excel features... fast - check. Powerful - check. Works offline - check. Let's get a little closer to google docs... Works online - check. Edit in browser - check. Edit on mobile device - check. Share with other people - check. Cheap - check (o365 sub is really cheap per seat). Can customise the UI - check. Can deal with huge sheets - check. Can extend, script etc - check. Goo…

I use MS Office occasionally at work but even that small amount of usage has me wanting to use Google Docs instead. -Someone has the Excel file open on the network? Oh, read-only for you my friend. Have to save? Better track down whoever has it open. -No revision/change tracking. Have to always be alert as to who is changing what and when. Often simpler just to make a new file and add to the clutter on the network fo…

The lack of change tracking just blows me away. It's a killer feature for Docs.

Re: New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

#66

Post by RokStdy »

FigBug wrote: post #21
oshineye wrote: post #4

It's still proprietary software. Why would I use this instead of Libreoffice?

It is convenient. But I am surprised so many people are willing to put their business's data into a spreadsheet where they can't even get the native files. If this takes off it's going to be lock in 100x worse than Excel ever was.

Why? If you can get your data out as CSV? How are you locked in at all, or at least, any more than with Microsoft?

p.s. According to a sheet I have saved I can download my info as: .xlsx .ods (OpenDocument Format) .pdf .csv .txt .html

Re: New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

#67

Post by [deleted] »

gdulli wrote: post #24

I'm at my first company that uses Google apps and it's been a bad experience. There's so much about email and calendaring that Outlook/Exchange got right that it's hard to be without it after taking it for granted. Using a native rich application is always going to be superior to building a web app on top of a browser. Once you're used to real applications, Gmail and the other apps aren't suitable for anything more t…

[deleted]

Re: New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

#68

Post by csmuk »

VikingCoder wrote: post #65
xhrpost wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use MS Office occasionally at work but even that small amount of usage has me wanting to use Google Docs instead. -Someone has the Excel file open on the network? Oh, read-only for you my friend. Have to save? Better track down whoever has it open. -No revision/change tracking. Have to always be alert as to who is changing what and when. Often simpler just to make a new file and add to the clutter on the network fo…

The lack of change tracking just blows me away. It's a killer feature for Docs.

Have you actually used office? It has change tracking, diff and merge and has done for over 10 years. The problem here is network locking which is totally different.

Re: New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

#69

Post by wudf »

Big fan of gdocs here. Some of the new functions are going to really be great. My only complaint is the display changes. The default row size has increased to 21 from 17 and size 10 font no longer fits in a 17 pixel row. The best option now is size 9 font on 19 pixel rows. It may seem nitpicky, but when I design a spreadsheet, I use a lot of screenspace and this really adds up.

Re: New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

#70

Post by DominikR »

FigBug wrote: post #21
oshineye wrote: post #4

It's still proprietary software. Why would I use this instead of Libreoffice?

It is convenient. But I am surprised so many people are willing to put their business's data into a spreadsheet where they can't even get the native files. If this takes off it's going to be lock in 100x worse than Excel ever was.

You can export Google spreadsheets in multiple formats (Microsoft Excel, OpenDocument format and so on)
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