If you're hesitating between the spreadsheet solutions available on the market, it means you are among the lucky ones who get to choose it themselves. It is usually the work environment or the preferences of our co-workers that define our software ecosystem. If most people in your team prefer Google Office suite, most likely you will end up in Google Drive. If people around are advocates of the Microsoft Office products, you'll probably choose it as well.
If you do get to determine, take a closer look at the main players in this field. As a regular user of both, Excel online and Google Sheets, I will share my view of these services, hoping it will help you see what tool suits your purposes better. I'll do my best to stay impartial and list all the pros you crave and the cons that you may not want to put up with.
Please note that I will compare the online counterparts. Not just because this would be the only fair juxtaposition, but also because they give you access to your tables anywhere and streamline collaboration. Work online is a commodity that is slowly turning into a necessity. I put aside the questions of data security in the cloud because both solutions are there, and focus on the differences in the features they provide.
For the accuracy of the experiment, I created a new account in each service to see what you get before you start any subscriptions, so we'll look at plain free versions of the spreadsheet solutions. If you don't have the time to try both of them, below you'll find the list of the main distinctions.
When working with our tables, there is basic functionality we are used to. Both programs seem to provide the same set of necessary features, but each has its own advantages.
The Home tab in Excel online is practically unchanged:
Google Sheets is a lot like Excel 2003: there are icons for the main functions and drop-down menus:
There are a couple of minor differences with the ways you can edit text and color. Neither support patterns and some other more advanced options, but basic formatting is available. The following are not necessarily the most important features, but sometimes even they play a crucial role in the way you process your data:
The most appreciated feature you get is the possibility to convert your range to a table. This will give it a finished look: the headers will stand out and every other row will be neatly colored. One more nice little thing is a double underline.
Here you get much-wanted support for the cell border styles and colors, a few text wrapping options, and a format painter. If you like crossing things out, use the strikethrough formatting here. One more pleasant possibility is using color in the sheet names to distinguish them.
Both Google Sheets and Excel online are in a tough position. People expect to get their favorite functionality from the desktop version of Excel, and we seem to concentrate on what the online services do not have. Let's try to look at them from a different perspective and see what they can do for you now.
When you open an Excel file in the online version, it is shown very well, and practically all features are supported now. If you initially create the file online, here are the good sides to it:
You will also notice some undesirable points.
Google Sheets has a lot more to offer off-the-shelf. Online is their realm, and they've been here for a while. They certainly didn't waste time as they brought all the basic functionality you need to work with tables:
What about things that are not so great?
Work with functions: there are no hints, and unless you know them all by heart, you have to switch between your table and a tab with the list of functions.
Little, but sometimes important features. Even though they are adding new functionality, they are not always enough to work with numeric data professionally. The support forum is full of messages about missing solutions that desktop Excel offers. Chances are, they are not available in Excel online either.
If you have to professionally deal with a lot of numeric data on a daily basis, no online solutions can beat on-premises Excel at the moment. As your table grows large, it becomes sluggish and hard to deal with online, processing it is clumsy, and you have to rely on the servers.
Generally speaking, you need to ask yourself the main question: how much of your work with numbers do you want to bring online? If you are taking a step towards the cloud, you can see that the essence of online Excel and Google Sheets is different.
Right now Excel online is simply a great auxiliary tool for your desktop Excel. If you get a subscription for Office 365, it is backed up by the powerful version. Without it, it only lets you "view and lightly edit" your tables on the go.
Google Sheets is an independent and mainly online solution. It is the principal spreadsheet product that you get in their office suite. If the functionality it offers is enough for your regular work with the tables, it is a good option. It primarily gives you streamlined collaboration tools, access to your sheets from any device, all basic operations, and some more profound work with the data that you are used to in Excel.
Did I overlook any important features? What service did you choose? Please share your experience in the comments section.
7 responses to "Excel online or Google Sheets: choosing online solution for your tables"
when two words combined in one cell in Proper case how can it split in cells
Hi Experts,
If two different names combined in one cell(in proper case)how can it split into cells.
Example
ShelleyLandis
Hi Rakesh,
You can find a detailed description of several ways you can split names by case in this post.
I hope this helps.
Dep Account Amount
0010 300160 0
0010 354009 -74378.96
0010 361001 0
0010 361012 -41045.24
0010 361013 -17272.9
0010 361015 -89.84
0010 664901 -1422
0010 690001 -86620.12
0011 690001 5666
0012 690001 5411
how I can get sum for Department 0010 with account start with 3?
Jikku:
Where your sample data is organized like this:
Dep in F31:F40, Account is in G31:G40 and Amount is in H30:H40 the formula is:
=SUMIFS(H31:H40,G31:G40,"=3*",F31:F40,"0010")
A company has engaged in Ice cream manufacturing business, the transactions for the month of October 201X are as follows:
Sales are 2 million,
Costs are 1.1 million,
Selling expenses 0.2 million,
taxes @ 35%
a) Calculate net income.
b) The manager of the company wants to perform sensitivity analysis if sales were increased by 24% (all cost and expenses are propotional to sales), what will be the net income?
Hello there,
to be able to calculate net income, you need to understand it's basics. I believe, this article explains it well, please have a look.