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Kimbro Staken exploring creative use of technology and whatever else happens to seem interesting.
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A decent Spreadsheet for Mac OS X that’s not Excel
I’m generally not a big fan of Microsoft software though I do use Excel quite a bit. It’s a pretty good program, but it’s way too expensive for how I use it. I don’t go much beyond basic financial models and simple data lists. I’ve also been getting pretty annoyed with the fact it’s not a native binary on the Intel version of Mac OS X. I’ve tried various other Mac OS X solutions (Mariner, Mesa, AppleWorks) as well as some of the Web 2.0 solutions like Google Spreadsheet and I think I’ve finally found one that works well enough for me. It’s called Tables and while it’s rudimentary, my needs are also rudimentary so it’s been a decent fit so far.
It imported my Excel spreadsheets with no problems (again I’m far from an Excel power user) and will actually use the excel format directly (i.e. you can edit and save the excel files without importing/exporting).
It’s a pretty basic program right now and doesn’t support graphs or calculations that are too complex. For simple models (the stuff most people actually use) and the management of small sets of data it’s the first thing I’ve used that doesn’t drive me nuts in five minutes. A license costs roughly $51 (the developer is based in Europe, 39 €).
It’s not nearly as powerful as Excel and Excel does have better usability overall, but it’s a young program and does look promising. As long as Apple doesn’t come out with their rumored spreadsheet, the future for this program could be pretty nice.
This entry was posted by Kimbro Staken on Monday, March 12th, 2007 at 7:22 pm and is filed under Mac OS X. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.
March 12th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Have you tried NeoOffice? I have been using since it’s early alpha days and its pretty good. They even have a native Intel version…
March 12th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
I haven’t tried it lately, but the UI on it bugged me in the past. I just took a look at it again and it looks like it may be quite a bit better now. However, I’ve been really hoping to find something with a native Cocoa UI even if the app is somewhat simplistic.
March 13th, 2007 at 3:32 am
OpenOffice.org is going on native macosX port. For now a full working X11 version is available
The native port preview will be available later in this year but OOo is definitivelly the way to go
Moreover, OOo has great scripting capabilities as it support python
and other languages
http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Extensions_development_python
March 13th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
I frankly don’t understand why OOo, is so popular. I’ve always found it to be a bad copy of a 90’s MS Office UI wise. In addition to that it’s *huge* and slow.
Sure it’s free but that’s not the most important thing in the world, right?
March 14th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Yeah, I’ve kinda looked at Open Office the same way. It’s definitely the most feature complete, but it’s also quite bloated and has an antiquated feeling UI. I’d much rather use a newer, thinner application with a cleaner user interface. If I was a power user I’d probably feel differently but as it is it’s been about two years since I’ve even needed to print anything out I don’t think I qualify.