Google Spreadsheet Online Today
Today, Google unveiled “Google Spreadsheet.” What the name lacks in creativity it makes up in AJAX goodness. I have long been a fan of Gmail. Google calendar has proven itself to be the clear winner in my calendar needs (In the past, I’ve tried to use iCal, Outlook combined with a Pocket PC, and my cell phone). I even got Pastor Bob hooked on Google Calendar and I’m pretty sure the Administration calendar is online.
Google Spreadsheet will definitely be next on my list of online tools.
I first heard about this tool yesterday and immediately signed up for an invitation. I never expected to get one since I joined right before the unveiling. I was pleasantly surprised to see my invitation this morning.
First of all, I love the fact that you can upload any Excel sheet and it will keep all the formula’s and formatting. You don’t have to upload though, you can start from scratch. Obviously, you can store all the sheets you want online. The interface is like Excel, except common features are grouped by tabs instead of toolbars (a very cool idea). It has a very clean interface and it’s easy to navigate. A few features could be placed in better positions, but hey it’s a beta. I also really love the fact I can export any sheet back to my PC as an Excel file and not just a CSV or some other generic format.
The best part is the sharing. I can invite anyone to view or edit the sheet. Also, they have integrated Google Chat into the program, so if multiple people are viewing/editing at the same time, you can converse in a chat window on the right side of the screen.
This is very helpful to me because I haven’t had the time to really dig into PHP and MySQL yet. Until I’m able to do that, I’ve been keeping a lot of Church IT info in Excel sheets. I can’t work on them on my lunch hour at work because work isn’t standardized on Microsoft Office. At church, I can’t open any Excel files on the server because it’s Linux. This awesome tool from Google will solve both of those problems for me.
If you’re a Google fan and you have a hodgepodge of technology like we do, this could be a great tool. Two big thumbs up from me. It needs some tweaking, but it’s a great start.
Thanks Google!
I LOVE SPREADSHEETS!! I keep one for just about everything professional and personal. This news by Google is AWESOME! However, I first read about it last night and immediatly signed up for it - might’ve been too late to get a timely invite though. Thanks to your review of it, I’m jonesing more than ever for it. I’ve been using OpenOffice 2.0 for about a year (personally) and really like Calc because it’s not a huge departure from Ol’ Faithful (Excel) however, the fact that Google is building in live collaboration into their spreadsheet isvery exciting.