After putting my e-mail address on the waiting list to try out Google Labs’ new product, I find myself logging in 30 minutes ago to the new online program. Here’s a quick review and some screenshots of Google’s hottest and latest product.
Okay, so when you enter Google Spreadsheets, you’re presented with a blank spreadsheet – as you would any spreadsheet program. There are really only 5 sections to the window: the top bar which is ‘File’ and ‘Save’ and your Google Account details, the second bar which on the left allows you to switch to ‘Format’, ‘Sort’ or ‘Formulas’ view. On the right of this bar are the basic operations of ‘Cut’, ‘Copy’, ‘Paste’, ‘Undo’ and ‘Redo’. Under this bar are the options depending on which of the three views you’re in. For example, for the ‘Format’ view you can align text, add decoration (bold, italic, underline, colour etc.) and move a cell or selection to a different row or column. Below this is the actual spreadsheet. You can select multiple cells, merge cells, widen and shorten rows and columns and delete rows and columns. And under this is another menu bar. This bar displays your open spreadsheets, allows you to rename them and allows you to start a new spreadsheet.
Although it didn’t function when I tested it, Google Spreadsheets will allow you to export your spreadsheets into three widely used formats: CSV (comma separated values) (.csv), Microsoft Excel (.xls) and as HTML. I think this is an extremely useful feature as all spreadsheet programs support CSV files in some way so what ever you do with your spreadsheet, you can be assured it’ll work elsewhere. Another feature, like Google Calendar, is that you can share your spreadsheet with people you know. This could be useful in a number of different situations but again, maybe more for the business user rather than for personal use.
Google have kept the interface as simple as possible while still allowing for extreme complexity within the spreadsheet. For example, Google Spreadsheets allows for an overwhelming amount of formula functions from ACOS to YIELD. Hopefully, it also allows you to get data from another open spreadsheet such as Microsoft Excel does. I have to say that yes it may be a great piece of software and offers near the same functionality as some other desktop software, I don’t see why anyone would use it. During my 45 minute experience with it, it was slow to update any changes I made except the entering of text and it doesn’t provide any help with entering formulas – only error messages saying the wrong number of arguments has been inputted. Although the slowness will probably be fixed by the time of ‘public’ release, I still feel that online office suites/programs are superfluous and should be admired, yes, but utilised as an everyday replacement, no.
I’ll be sticking to Office 2003 and 2007 Beta 2, thank you very much.
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