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Ask HN: I'm looking for some new spreadsheet software what are people using?

• gregjor 4y ago
  If you use spreadsheets a lot I think Excel pays for itself. Google Sheets offers the most common alternative, free. Macs/iPads come with Numbers, no additional charge. I get wanting to use free software but sometimes you get what you pay for. Since pretty much everyone who uses spreadsheets uses Excel you just waste your time and energy trying to swim upstream.
  • n4r9 4y ago
    > Since pretty much everyone who uses spreadsheets uses Excel you just waste your time and energy trying to swim upstream. The biggest draw of Excel is that everyone else uses it, imo. This is countered by the fact that you can read and save excel docs using Libre Office Calc. I have a list of bugbears with Excel that Libre Office handles just fine. The biggest one is its insistence on converting a number range like "2-9" to a date like "09 Feb" when working with CSV data. I've spent hours looking for ways to prevent this - e.g. by formatting cells as Text before saving - but to no avail. Excel thinks it knows better. Libre Office also has a better UI for working with non-standard data formats like tab-separated data.
    • gregjor 4y ago
      If you use Excel's import wizard it lets you choose how to format the imported columns. Older versions of Excel supported this. The most recent version, the Office365 desktop app (but I don't think the web app) has a checkbox to turn off automatic data type detection. You can also export CSV data as ="2-9" to force Excel to interpret it literally. I do that with US ZIP Codes to prevent the conversion to integer, i.e. 02134 turning into 2134.
      • n4r9 4y ago
        That actually works! I didn't realise using the import wizard would be different to just double-clicking the CSV file. I'll still argue that Libre Office Calc's workflow is better at this, in that it presents you with a wizard when you double-click the file and by default does not transform something to a date. But I now have an instruction to give to others who come up against this problem, so thank you.
• tekla 4y ago
  Excel
• pwg 4y ago
  > I'm currently using Libreoffice 7.4.3 and It's really buggy and keeps crashing when I scroll Have you checked to see if this bug has been reported -- and if not have you reported it to the Libreoffice developers? They can't fix what they don't know is happening (if the bug is unreported).
• CrypticShift 4y ago
  What about in-browser "standard" options like google sheet and MS excel online ? That's what I use (even offline) Take a look at this list for some free options : https://alternativeto.net/category/productivity/spreadsheet/?license=free&sort=likes https://alternativeto.net/category/productivity/spreadsheet/...
• s1291 4y ago
  If you are a command-line user, try visidata[0] [0] https://github.com/saulpw/visidata https://github.com/saulpw/visidata
  • mharig 4y ago
    I second this. With vd -f sqlite <data.sqlite> you can use it as a gate to SQL data. I found even for small personal data spreadsheets are to limiting compared with SQL, so I do not use them any longer. Btw, I never had stability problems with LibreOffice Calc.
• Tempest1981 4y ago
  I wish there was a mode to revert Excel back to how it was in 2010. Maybe some things are better now? But it's not as "crisp" and fast and clean as back then.
  • greazy 4y ago
    Agreed. It's slow, takes a few seconds to launch and there seems to be a delay when performing operations. Maybe it's just on my machine? All of the above is with a blank sheet or a tiny table.
    • netsharc 4y ago
      Why not just buy and install an older version of Office? One that's not an aaS-version. Maybe that can be a term for software that don't trap you into paying yearly, "Can I get the (I'm) Not-an-aaS-version?".
• tanin 4y ago
  If you know SQL and work with large CSVs (that exceed excel limit), I recommend https://superintendent.app https://superintendent.app (disclaimer: I'm the creator). But it is still not free though.
• mackrevinack 4y ago
  if you don't need the .xlsx format specifically then something like grist might be something that interest you https://github.com/gristlabs/grist-core https://github.com/gristlabs/grist-core there's a self hosted option that i tested in docker and it was fairly simple to get set up, but im mainly using the free version at the moment that is hosted by gristlabs themselves. the thing i love about it is being able to use python to write formulas, and also being able to have multiple views on one page such as a table view and then a card view that shows information from whatever item is selected in the table view. ive been using it for about a year now and i couldn't see myself ever going back to regular spreadsheets
  • zem 4y ago
    whoa, I've been looking for an open source collaborative table editor (to replace google sheets) for the last two years and never came across grist!
  • vladsanchez 4y ago
    Fantastic option. Thanks for sharing.
• scorxn 4y ago
  I'm a big fan of Gnumeric for all my personal stuff. It's not as feature-rich as Excel, but does everything I need, and is fast and focused. http://www.gnumeric.org/ http://www.gnumeric.org/
• kimona 4y ago
  https://rows.com/ https://rows.com/ It's quite a nice web-based option, based on my limited usage of it.
• quickthrower2 4y ago
  Office 365, shared amongst friends (5 license) with the large amount of storage can be worth it. Otherwise run LibreOffice on Linux?
• t312227 4y ago
  libreoffice ... idk, i don't do much with spreadsheets - calculating sums over columns mostly - this feature works like a charm and w/o crashes... but i use it on a linux-desktop system. and as always: next year is the year of the linux-desktop ;))
• throwaway81523 4y ago
  https://orgmode.org/manual/The-Spreadsheet.html https://orgmode.org/manual/The-Spreadsheet.html wfm.
• seekingcharlie 4y ago
  Depending on what you need it for, Airtable might work?
• eternityforest 4y ago
  Sounds like it might be worth figuring out why it crashes. Do you have spreadsheets that are way too big and don't belong in any spreadsheet app at all? Is it Windows's fault somehow?