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Copy a few cells from a Google sheet and paste it in an email, then do the same with Excel. Collaborate on building out a document from scratch with 10 people i

Copy a few cells from a Google sheet and paste it in an email, then do the same with Excel. Collaborate on building out a document from scratch with 10 people in Google sheets vs Excel. Excel is a monster, and much more powerful than Google sheets in many ways, but in my experience, Google docs apps are a little better for collaboration, and they integrate a little tighter with each other.

hctaw 5y ago
Google docs is their document editor. Sheets is a part of GSuite. I've also never had trouble pasting a spreedsheet selection into a word document. Email is a nightmare in general though. I'm not sold on collaboration personally. I've had to do it a bunch since the pandemic began and I've found it to be an anti pattern. One of the big inconsistencies is that cells in sheets don't update while being edited while collaborating, which is not great if you have a spreadsheet heavy workflow. Docs is impossible to replace that though, because it's auto formatting is draconian and always seems to reset its preferences. When editing docs we spend more time formatting them then creating the content.
- zerkten 5y ago
  > I'm not sold on collaboration personally. I've had to do it a bunch since the pandemic began and I've found it to be an anti pattern. How much of this is really related to technology? I do a lot of writing in both Word and Google Docs and see different sets of problems for both products. Having a group of people jump into either and expecting a good product (and experience getting there) is unrealistic. With the pandemic, I think people have been trying lots of things without understanding what will be most effective. At least early on, there was a feeling that people had to be seen to be productive. It's nothing like real remote work. For important docs, I still come back to having individuals write their content and only then does one person attempt to assemble it. The individuals often need their own independent reviews and consultation anyway before they have a decent draft. In some ways it improves visibility and helps with keeping folks on schedule too.
silicon2401 5y ago
Google sheets is the specific example that I hate. In my experience, it's often laggy and clunky. You can't even scroll smoothly: the window MUST snap to row/column lines. When I realized that google sheets has such a laughable shortcoming, I knew I needed to get out of google office eventually.
idiotsecant 5y ago
i think copying some cells from excel into outlook, which i guess is the comparable transaction, works pretty well - what doesn't work for you? Maybe I am just missing out on some amazing functionality by not using google docs.

hctaw 5y ago

Google docs is their document editor. Sheets is a part of GSuite. I've also never had trouble pasting a spreedsheet selection into a word document. Email is a nightmare in general though. I'm not sold on collaboration personally. I've had to do it a bunch since the pandemic began and I've found it to be an anti pattern. One of the big inconsistencies is that cells in sheets don't update while being edited while collaborating, which is not great if you have a spreadsheet heavy workflow. Docs is impossible to replace that though, because it's auto formatting is draconian and always seems to reset its preferences. When editing docs we spend more time formatting them then creating the content.

zerkten 5y ago
> I'm not sold on collaboration personally. I've had to do it a bunch since the pandemic began and I've found it to be an anti pattern. How much of this is really related to technology? I do a lot of writing in both Word and Google Docs and see different sets of problems for both products. Having a group of people jump into either and expecting a good product (and experience getting there) is unrealistic. With the pandemic, I think people have been trying lots of things without understanding what will be most effective. At least early on, there was a feeling that people had to be seen to be productive. It's nothing like real remote work. For important docs, I still come back to having individuals write their content and only then does one person attempt to assemble it. The individuals often need their own independent reviews and consultation anyway before they have a decent draft. In some ways it improves visibility and helps with keeping folks on schedule too.

silicon2401 5y ago

Google sheets is the specific example that I hate. In my experience, it's often laggy and clunky. You can't even scroll smoothly: the window MUST snap to row/column lines. When I realized that google sheets has such a laughable shortcoming, I knew I needed to get out of google office eventually.

idiotsecant 5y ago

i think copying some cells from excel into outlook, which i guess is the comparable transaction, works pretty well - what doesn't work for you? Maybe I am just missing out on some amazing functionality by not using google docs.