Hands on: Plan with Google spreadsheets

If your Excel workbook has several worksheets with named tabs, these will appear when you import it into a fresh Google spreadsheet file.

Once the file is stored, you can choose whom you wish to see it. Just enter their email addresses and specify whether they can only view the file or be a collaborator, that is someone who can amend the file.

You can also email them an invitation to view the file with a click of a button. There’s also a discussion option, so approved people can view and comment without making amendments.

Whenever you return to the Google documents site, you can see a listing of the spreadsheets you have stored, showing the dates they were last edited, and who is permitted to view or amend them.

After initially naming a Google spreadsheet file there is no need to keep saving it because it’s automatically saved in a secure online storage facility as you go. Even if you accidentally erase something, you can click the Revisions tab and step through all the changes made by yourself or others.

A pop-up box gives the time of each revision, the name of the person who made it, and the type of revision, such as ‘Made edits’ or ‘Sorted’. This is extremely helpful when a number of people are making changes to a spreadsheet.

Publishing
You can publish a Google spreadsheet as a web page if you like, or embed a spreadsheet into one of your existing web pages. It can be a snapshot of the Google spreadsheet or a dynamic version that will automatically update when your spreadsheet is changed.

You can also save a Google spreadsheet file to your own computer in XLS, CSV, or HTML formats. In other words, you can’t save Google spreadsheet software to your computer, but you can save the data to display in other software.

Going the other way, Google documents and spreadsheets can import XLS, CSV and RTF files. They also recognise the Open Office/Star Office Opt and Ods extensions. Google reckons that all your formulas and formatting will be understood.

Although Google spreadsheets don’t currently import or export in the new Office 2007 spreadsheet format, they do have a gadget feature, as in Windows Vista. You can have a Google spreadsheets Gadget on the homepage of your website. From here it will list your most recently active spreadsheets so you can choose and activate them.

There is even a Google application program interface (API) called Gdata, which enables software writers to use a Google spreadsheet as a database, from which the records can be retrieved by their own application software. Gdata can also be used to access an external graphing library.

All the most basic Excel shortcuts like Ctrl & A, B, C, I, K and S for Select All, Bold, Copy, Italicise, Insert Link and Save respectively are recognised in a Google spreadsheet.

You don’t need any more software than a browser to access and use Google spreadsheets. Internet Explorer 6 and higher, and recent versions of Mozilla Firefox and Netscape will work – providing cookies and Javascript are enabled. Safari and Opera are not currently supported though.