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Posted by ray@lcorn on June 07, 2006 at 10:21:58:

A post on the Big Picture blog (http://bigpicture.typepad.com) this morning caught my eye.

I'm probably the last to hear about it, but Google is rolling out an online spreadsheet application. See http://www.google.com/googlespreadsheets/tour1.html

If this is as good as it looks it could be a great collaboration tool. This could be a way to quickly post the numbers for a deal and get feedback here on the board, with the huge advantage of having the right information in a standard format, and no need for email attachments.

I've signed up for the beta test. Has anyone here tried this out?

ray

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Posted by eh on June 07, 2006 at 12:50:05:

Don't know if this matters, but it currently doesn't support macros or charts. I hope they support simple formulas and some of the financial functions!

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Posted by ray@lcorn on June 07, 2006 at 13:40:32:

I got the invitation from Google about two hours after registering. I created a simple worksheet for a property income/expense statement with standard formulas.

The formulas work just like Excel, though you can't drag the formulas to multiple adjacent cells. However, by using the formula view and the copy/paste commands on the toolbar the same function can be accomplished, if a little clumsy. Formatting is similar. The right click menu options are absent but buttons are available for the same functions.

But all that is moot, because once a spreadsheet is named and saved it can be downloaded, modified, then uploaded to the Google site. Some local formatting changes seem to get lost, but that may have been my own inexperience. Both the download and upload were very quick and required only one click.

Invitations to either view-only or view and edit can be sent by simply listing the email address. There is a dialog box for messages as well.

With just that quick test it looks promising. I would encourage giving it a try.

ray