Quick. Name all the spreadsheet apps for Mac users. OK, there’s Numbers from Apple. Excel from Microsoft. Don’t forget, oh, uh, what’s the name of that app?
Actually, if you don’t mind serious Excel-like functionality in a Windows-like interface, there’s Libre Office. But what if you’re flummoxed by Excel, and find that Apple’s built-in Numbers isn’t your number? What you need is a simple spreadsheet; one with a modest learning curve with enough usability. Here it is and it’s free.
Edit Tables On TableEdit
Or, put another way, you could put your Mac on your dining room table, and edit tables using TableEdit, or just table the whole thing until after lunch. Yep. That’s the name of the littlest Mac spreadsheet I’ve ever seen. TableEdit. This is minimalist personified. It’s not Excel. It’s not even Numbers. So, if you need all those esoteric features, functions, and charting options, leave TableEdit on the table.
But if you understand small is beautiful and simple is better, then getting TableEdit for free just seems like the bargain of the week. Look. Eye candy.
If you’ve ever used a spreadsheet in a past life then you’ll be much at home with TableEdit. Style cells, format cells, drop in Excel-compatible functions (but not all of them; this is free, right?) and formulas and click to get some eye candy charts which are decent considering the nominal price tag (free is nominal, right?).
What if you have some Excel spreadsheets but don’t have Excel handy?
When you boil it down, Microsoft Excel is simply a spreadsheet program, for which there are many alternatives. Even better, many of those alternatives are free! See Also: 11 Excellent Free Online Courses for Entrepreneurs.
4 Free Spreadsheet Alternatives to Microsoft Excel Microsoft Excel is the world's leading spreadsheet application, and it's the one by which all others are measured. However, having the Microsoft brand on your small business software can be costly.
Best Mac spreadsheet apps. Number-Crunching: Calc is the spreadsheet program within the free OpenOffice suite. It looks a bit like a mash-up of Numbers and Microsoft Excel, as there’s a. How can the answer be improved?
TableEdit can import CSV files and Excel files, either drag and drop or through the import option. It even exports spreadsheets to Excel.
I was especially impressed with how many different Excel spreadsheets I could suck up into TableEdit. There might be some incompatibilities but I couldn’t find it on my spreadsheet collection.
Likewise, the charts and graphs work much like Excel so you can click to visualize table cell data, customize and define colors and styles, and, very Mac-like, you can move the charts and graphs around the spreadsheet.
The app is downloadable from the Mac App Store and from the developer’s website. From what I can tell, this is a new Mac app that has more features planned, including a price tag. Still, free is hard to beat, so if you’re overtaxed by Excel and Numbers doesn’t have your number, then TableEdit might be the candidate of choice among many. Did I mention it’s free?
There are a handful of capable, solid spreadsheet apps for Mac, but we've got our money on Excel thanks to its rich feature set, cross-platform (and web) compatibility, and data management tools.
Microsoft Excel 2011
Platform: Mac OS X Price: $120-200 (Part of Microsoft Office) Download Page
Features
Create spreadsheets with integrated equations
Create attractive graphs from your data
Organize and filter your tables
Create thumbnail-sized 'sparkline' charts for viewing data at a glance
Visually enhance your data with boards, highlighting, and more
Automatically summarize your data with PivotTables
Use VisualBasic to create macros and add additional functionality to Excel
Use Excel's Automator actions to automate repetitive tasks
The Excel Web App will let you access your spreadsheets from anywhere
Comprehensive toolbar with the most commonly-used features
Easily filter data so you're not distracted by data you don't need to see
Where It Excels
Excel is an incredibly feature-rich application, to the point where it can even get a little overwhelming, while still offering simple spreadsheet functionality. If you know how to type data into boxes and perform calculations in any spreadsheet app you know how to do it in Excel. You don't have to dive into anything too deep to perform the most common tasks. Graph and chart creation is also very easy, as those buttons are readily available in your toolbar. While Apple touts the beauty of Numbers, its spreadsheet application (see the competition section below for more information), Excel is highly capable of creating attractive images as well. Overall, it gets the job done whether that job is simple, complex, or even requires a pleasant aesthetic.
Excel is really a spreadsheet app for power users, so it may be overwhelming for some. It's also been around for many years and it's hard to keep adding new, useful features to an app that already does its job well. As a result, Excel has become a little bloated. It can be very overwhelming to new users. Finding what you're looking for can be tough because there is so much there.
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Assuming you get past the learning curve, one of the more annoying issues with Excel for Mac is that it's different from Excel for Windows. While the applications are very similar, they're developed by different departments and often times the Windows version ends up with features and functionality that aren't present in the Mac version (and vice-versa). The most notable feature to have this problem is macro support. Macro support is finally back in Excel 2011 for Mac, but it's both been included and removed from versions in the past. Missing features can be a minor annoyance for some and a major one for others, so before you jump into Excel on the Mac you should make sure you're getting the features you expect.
The Competition
Numbers ($20) is Apple's entry into the spreadsheet software market and it's not bad. Number has always favored its stylish graphs over its feature set, but that doesn't make it useless. It's a very serviceable spreadsheet application for most people, and is a good option if you don't need something as intense as Excel.
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Mesa ($34) and Tables (~$42) are both simple spreadsheet apps that, while very good, are hard to justify because of the cost. These two apps are very focused on offering a basic feature set and remaining focused, rather than becoming bloated software. The result is two very serviceable spreadsheet apps, but you have to wonder why you're paying so much for something that's not quite as capable as some cheaper apps.
Free Spreadsheet Program For Macbook Pro
Calc (Free) is the spreadsheet app that comes along with LibreOffice and is your best free option for spreadsheet work. It handles everything you'd except, from equations to graphs and more, plus it's capable of handling the Excel document format.
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Have a favorite spreadsheet app we didn't mention? Share it in the comments.
Lifehacker's App Directory is a new and growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools in a number of given categories.