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I genuinely enjoy using Numbers in a way that I just don’t with Excel. Probably more indicative of the level I’m using it at, but for me it fills the gap where

I genuinely enjoy using Numbers in a way that I just don’t with Excel. Probably more indicative of the level I’m using it at, but for me it fills the gap where I just want to do some quick manipulations of CSV data but not enough that it’s worth writing a script.

WillAdams 2y ago
It is _so_ close to being a replacement for Lotus Improv/Quantrix Financial Modeler/Flexisheet. Just held back by the need to import/export Excel files.
- oidar 2y ago
  It does import/export Excel.
  - WillAdams 2y ago
    Yes, that is what precludes it being a Lotus Improv, et al. replacement, it is oriented towards a 2D structure, rather than requiring that the user tear off and label specific axes one at a time, which was what made Lotus Improv such a breakthrough app.
isomorph 2y ago
I'm also a Numbers fan. I actually like using Pages too. When I use Microsoft Office, I remember its power but I also find it relatively difficult to use.
- tzs 2y ago
  Pages greatly confused me the first time I tried to use it, several years ago. That's because it included a bunch of templates for different kinds of documents, and when you created a new document from one of those templates the document was full of text and images. That text was Lorem ipsum [1]. I had never seen that before and assumed that I had somehow gotten the templates for some other language installed with my English Pages install. I then spent a few hours trying to figure out how to change template language settings or install English templates. I eventually copies some of the text and Googled it, hoping to find someone else who had this problem and had found the fix and then learned about Lorem ipsum. Nowadays when you create a document from the templates that come with Pages the placeholder text is in your language and is usage instructions for the template. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum
  - czk 2y ago
    ChatGPT killed Lorem Ipsum
qsort 2y ago
I use macOS and the rest of the pseudo-office suite. It's okay. But Numbers is just bad. It takes forever to open files and perform even trivial operations. I do a lot of data engineering and people's "creative" usage of Excel is the bane of my existence, but there's a reason why it's used everywhere: it's that good. None of the clones even hold a candle to the real thing.
- Synaesthesia 2y ago
  It depends on your use case. I wouldn't use numbers for anything large or complex but it's really quite a pleasure for smaller things, like invoices or planning.
fkyoureadthedoc 2y ago
My main use of Numbers is when I open a CSV file and it's messed up in Excel, I then open it in Numbers and export an Excel which fixes the issues.
sgt 2y ago
Excel is horrible. Functionality is great (it's packed with features), but it's just so clunky and slow. So I have to agree, Numbers feels like a light weight Excel that meets my demands as well.
- pbh101 2y ago
  If you are using significant amounts of data, Excel even on Mac is light years ahead of Numbers I’ve found. And probably still slower than Excel on Windows. My experience was using pivot tables with 80k-100k rows and maybe 20 columns. Excel was instant and Numbers took dozens of seconds of UI completely frozen to update the table.
diegof79 2y ago
I like the feature allowing multiple tables to be in the same spreadsheet. It’s a convenient and obvious solution that, for some reason, Excel or Google Sheets don’t have. Does anybody know the history behind it? Is there any kind of patent around that UI feature that only Numbers (AFAIK) has?
- MartinMond 2y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Improv https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Improv
- nhinck3 2y ago
  With some functionality that differs to the tables in excel? Because you can have multiple tables in a single sheet in excel, but I guess the columns filters don't play nicely with multiple tables.
  - diegof79 2y ago
    Yes, it’s different from Excel tables. @wtallis probably explained it better, but I’ll give it another shot: A “spreadsheet” or tab in Numbers is like a canvas where you can put tables, text boxes, , charts or shapes. The classic spreadsheet is one of these table objects. If you want it to behave like a classic spreadsheet, you can have a single table object that takes the whole canvas; otherwise, you can have multiple. Each is like a spreadsheet with columns and rows; formulas can refer to cells in other tables. It’s handy to create dashboard-like views or visually organize your work. In other words, Excel tables are a special region in your spreadsheet; Numbers tables are individual spreadsheets on a canvas.
- kccqzy 2y ago
  Google Sheets does have this feature. But it was fairly recent. Numbers had it for a long time and in any case I still prefer the implementation in Numbers. In Numbers, data is referenced through these tables exclusively while getting rid of sheet-level references; tables in Google Sheets do not go that far. My mental model for tables in Numbers is just sheets but relocatable and multiple can be viewed at the same time. My mental model for tables in Sheets is just it helps me with formatting and with referencing the entirety of the data like an upgraded named range. https://support.google.com/docs/answer/14239833?hl=en https://support.google.com/docs/answer/14239833?hl=en
alabastervlog 2y ago
Pretty much the entire suite of 1st party Apple programs are my favorite in their categories, across platforms. Their "office" apps remind me of the lightweight non-LibreOffice options on Linux, like Gnumeric and Abiword, but better integrated, less janky, and I've never once seen any of them crash. I like that I can forget I even have them open in the background, they're so light. Which should be the case for practically everything given how powerful modern computers are, but, unfortunately, Electron exists.
- pbh101 2y ago
  A really nice thing I noticed about Pages is that if you use the defaults, your document turns out very nicely typeset with zero extra effort, at least to my untrained eyes. Which you’d expect from Apple and maybe any word processor, but I can’t say I’ve had that baseline experience with others.
- kstrauser 2y ago
  Same for me. I cringe when I have to resort to MS Office to deal with some janky external doc or another. Excel has a gazillion functions. Numbers has less coverage, but it implements them pleasantly in a Mac-assed Mac app. Same with Pages vs Word. I'm sure has power features some people can't live without. I can live without ‘em, in exchange for getting an ergonomic app that runs nicely on my OS. I'd reach for Pages every time over Word, which, ironically, in my opinion is not very good at processing words. (99% of the time I use iA Writer in a Markdown workflow. If I specifically need WYSIWYG for something, it’s Pages every time.)
c0nsumer 2y ago
Same here. For just knocking up models of stuff I find it both nicer than Excel (and included with the OS) and works... better... for me than Google Sheets. It's just convenient and works.

WillAdams 2y ago

It is _so_ close to being a replacement for Lotus Improv/Quantrix Financial Modeler/Flexisheet. Just held back by the need to import/export Excel files.

oidar 2y ago
It does import/export Excel.
- WillAdams 2y ago
  Yes, that is what precludes it being a Lotus Improv, et al. replacement, it is oriented towards a 2D structure, rather than requiring that the user tear off and label specific axes one at a time, which was what made Lotus Improv such a breakthrough app.

isomorph 2y ago

I'm also a Numbers fan. I actually like using Pages too. When I use Microsoft Office, I remember its power but I also find it relatively difficult to use.

tzs 2y ago
Pages greatly confused me the first time I tried to use it, several years ago. That's because it included a bunch of templates for different kinds of documents, and when you created a new document from one of those templates the document was full of text and images. That text was Lorem ipsum [1]. I had never seen that before and assumed that I had somehow gotten the templates for some other language installed with my English Pages install. I then spent a few hours trying to figure out how to change template language settings or install English templates. I eventually copies some of the text and Googled it, hoping to find someone else who had this problem and had found the fix and then learned about Lorem ipsum. Nowadays when you create a document from the templates that come with Pages the placeholder text is in your language and is usage instructions for the template. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum
- czk 2y ago
  ChatGPT killed Lorem Ipsum

qsort 2y ago

I use macOS and the rest of the pseudo-office suite. It's okay. But Numbers is just bad. It takes forever to open files and perform even trivial operations. I do a lot of data engineering and people's "creative" usage of Excel is the bane of my existence, but there's a reason why it's used everywhere: it's that good. None of the clones even hold a candle to the real thing.

Synaesthesia 2y ago
It depends on your use case. I wouldn't use numbers for anything large or complex but it's really quite a pleasure for smaller things, like invoices or planning.

fkyoureadthedoc 2y ago

My main use of Numbers is when I open a CSV file and it's messed up in Excel, I then open it in Numbers and export an Excel which fixes the issues.

sgt 2y ago

Excel is horrible. Functionality is great (it's packed with features), but it's just so clunky and slow. So I have to agree, Numbers feels like a light weight Excel that meets my demands as well.

pbh101 2y ago
If you are using significant amounts of data, Excel even on Mac is light years ahead of Numbers I’ve found. And probably still slower than Excel on Windows. My experience was using pivot tables with 80k-100k rows and maybe 20 columns. Excel was instant and Numbers took dozens of seconds of UI completely frozen to update the table.

diegof79 2y ago

I like the feature allowing multiple tables to be in the same spreadsheet. It’s a convenient and obvious solution that, for some reason, Excel or Google Sheets don’t have. Does anybody know the history behind it? Is there any kind of patent around that UI feature that only Numbers (AFAIK) has?

MartinMond 2y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Improv https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Improv
nhinck3 2y ago
With some functionality that differs to the tables in excel? Because you can have multiple tables in a single sheet in excel, but I guess the columns filters don't play nicely with multiple tables.
- diegof79 2y ago
  Yes, it’s different from Excel tables. @wtallis probably explained it better, but I’ll give it another shot: A “spreadsheet” or tab in Numbers is like a canvas where you can put tables, text boxes, , charts or shapes. The classic spreadsheet is one of these table objects. If you want it to behave like a classic spreadsheet, you can have a single table object that takes the whole canvas; otherwise, you can have multiple. Each is like a spreadsheet with columns and rows; formulas can refer to cells in other tables. It’s handy to create dashboard-like views or visually organize your work. In other words, Excel tables are a special region in your spreadsheet; Numbers tables are individual spreadsheets on a canvas.
kccqzy 2y ago
Google Sheets does have this feature. But it was fairly recent. Numbers had it for a long time and in any case I still prefer the implementation in Numbers. In Numbers, data is referenced through these tables exclusively while getting rid of sheet-level references; tables in Google Sheets do not go that far. My mental model for tables in Numbers is just sheets but relocatable and multiple can be viewed at the same time. My mental model for tables in Sheets is just it helps me with formatting and with referencing the entirety of the data like an upgraded named range. https://support.google.com/docs/answer/14239833?hl=en https://support.google.com/docs/answer/14239833?hl=en

alabastervlog 2y ago

Pretty much the entire suite of 1st party Apple programs are my favorite in their categories, across platforms. Their "office" apps remind me of the lightweight non-LibreOffice options on Linux, like Gnumeric and Abiword, but better integrated, less janky, and I've never once seen any of them crash. I like that I can forget I even have them open in the background, they're so light. Which should be the case for practically everything given how powerful modern computers are, but, unfortunately, Electron exists.

pbh101 2y ago
A really nice thing I noticed about Pages is that if you use the defaults, your document turns out very nicely typeset with zero extra effort, at least to my untrained eyes. Which you’d expect from Apple and maybe any word processor, but I can’t say I’ve had that baseline experience with others.
kstrauser 2y ago
Same for me. I cringe when I have to resort to MS Office to deal with some janky external doc or another. Excel has a gazillion functions. Numbers has less coverage, but it implements them pleasantly in a Mac-assed Mac app. Same with Pages vs Word. I'm sure has power features some people can't live without. I can live without ‘em, in exchange for getting an ergonomic app that runs nicely on my OS. I'd reach for Pages every time over Word, which, ironically, in my opinion is not very good at processing words. (99% of the time I use iA Writer in a Markdown workflow. If I specifically need WYSIWYG for something, it’s Pages every time.)

c0nsumer 2y ago

Same here. For just knocking up models of stuff I find it both nicer than Excel (and included with the OS) and works... better... for me than Google Sheets. It's just convenient and works.