Key Features of MS ExcelĪs we continue our exploration of Microsoft Excel, we will answer the question: 'What are the main features of MS Excel?' to provide you with a deeper understanding of its capabilities. A spreadsheet is a digital grid composed of rows and columns where users can enter, organize, and manipulate data.To truly harness the power of Microsoft Excel, it's essential to explain the features of MS Excel comprehensively, ensuring you can make the most of this versatile tool in your daily tasks. It is primarily used for creating, editing, and managing spreadsheets.
Microsoft Excel is a part of the Microsoft Office suite, which includes other popular applications like Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook. In this blog, we'll explore the features of Microsoft Excel, starting with a brief introduction to the software. Excel offers a wide array of features designed to help users create, manage, analyze, and visualize data effectively. It has become an essential tool in various fields, from business and finance to education and research. And of course, you can also create files from scratch in the Zoho Sheet app.įor most small business owners, this is yet another great alternative as it offers most of the functionality that you’ll be familiar with from Excel.Microsoft Excel, often referred to simply as Excel, is a powerful spreadsheet application developed by Microsoft. Zoho Sheet looks very similar to Microsoft Excel and it allows you to work with local files on your computer or Google Docs files if you prefer. At this stage, simply head to “Productivity” on the menu and select the “Sheet” app from the list. All you need to do is create a free account with Zoho and then sign in. Zoho offers a lot of cloud-based web apps, many of which aren’t free. This is another cloud-based application (like Google Docs Spreadsheet and the Excel Web Application), so keep in mind that you’ll need an internet connection in order to use it. It should also be noted that OpenOffice allows you to open, edit, and create Excel worksheets, so it’s perfectly easy to make the switch from Excel to OpenOffice without much hassle. One of the benefits of OpenOffice over Google Docs Spreadsheet is that once downloaded, you won’t need access to the internet in order to use the program. It looks very similar and has charts, macros, and most of the other features you might be familiar with if you’ve previously used Microsoft Excel. In terms of functionality, OpenOffice is very similar to Microsoft Excel. It works on Windows, Mac OSX and Linux, so no matter which operating system you’re using, OpenOffice is pretty much guaranteed to work perfectly. Unlike Google Docs Spreadsheet, OpenOffice is a downloadable program and operates locally on your personal computer (much like Excel). It’s yet another extremely feature-rich and completely free alternative to Microsoft Excel. OpenOffice is a solution that is being utilized by more and more businesses these days. This makes working remotely on your spreadsheets easier than ever, as you can be sure that your files are backed up online automatically too. What’s more, you can actually use Google Docs anywhere you are, so long as you have an internet connection. It has much of the same functionality as Excel including a range of charts and the ability to create formulas, so it’s a pretty good alternative if you’re looking to save that bit of extra money on previous Microsoft Excel expenses. Google Docs Spreadsheet looks pretty similar to Excel but as you’ll notice, it actually operates inside your web browser. If this is the case, you’ll have access to the Google Docs Spreadsheet application without any extra effort at all.Įssentially, Google Docs Spreadsheet is Google’s own version of an Excel-like spreadsheet application the only differences are that it’s available for free, without having to download anything to your desktop. 1. Google Docs SpreadsheetĬhances are you already use a lot of Google products on a daily basis (e.g., Gmail, Google+, etc.) and therefore, you likely already have a Google account. Even better, many of those alternatives are free!īut just how good are these free alternatives to Excel? And which ones are the best? Here’s a roundup of what we consider to be the three absolute best free alternatives to Microsoft Excel. When you boil it down, Microsoft Excel is simply a spreadsheet program, for which there are many alternatives. Excel is part of the Microsoft Office “suite” of programs which, while it isn’t that expensive to purchase, is still an unnecessary cost for many of today’s fledgling businesses. Microsoft Excel is one of the most commonly used applications in the world of computing, but as you might already know, it isn’t free.