Google Spreadsheets Gets Charts (Finally!)

Whenever anyone asks me about the spreadsheet app in Google Docs and Spreadsheets and its robustness as an Excel substitute, I've explained that it's very basic--"It can't even create charts." No longer. After yesterday's news about an upcoming Google presentation app, the company rolled out a new version of Spreadsheets today with charting and a few other worthwhile features. The free Web-based app is still more of a Spreadsheet Jr. than a full-bodied Excel rival, but it's becoming more and more plausible as a real productivity tool, especially if collaboration is involved.

The charting features are pretty basic, but extremely easy to use--which is a welcome change from Excel's far richer equivalents, which (up until Excel 2007, at least) have been maddeningly user-hostile. You select a range of data, click a pie-chart icon, and get a dialog box that lets you choose from five chart types (columns, bars, lines, pies, and scatter) with several variations apiece. You can type in a chart title and axis labels, and save the chart as an image for use in other documents. As you work, you get a nice real-time preview of your chart. That's about it.

Anyone who's serious about producing slick graphs would want much, much more functionality than this--I don't even see a way to change colors, let alone fonts--but it's a good start, and adequate when you don't need anything fancy.

Other new stuff in this update includes the ability to give names to ranges (which is, for some users, as importnt as getting charts), a feature that lets you attach a comment to cells, a copy-this-sheet option, and the ability to right-click a cell and Google the text in it. The official Google Blog has some more details.

There are a ton of Web-based spreadsheets out there (Zoho Sheet is another strong entrant). But of the ones I've used, Google Spreadsheets is the most polished and usable--and now that it's got charting, I can recommend it with fewer disclaimers.

I'm not going to delete Excel anytime soon, but Docs and Spreadsheets and the other Google Apps programs are all working their way into my life as lightweight and fun-to-use complements to Office, with better and simpler built-in collaboration features than Microsoft's suite. Check 'em out, if you haven't....

Comments

I know that is very good app, but I not sure about its security.
If I add my important data, that is save for long time.

webbi

April 18, 2007

10:45 PM PT

If you need more advanced charts (outside the Google spreadsheet as images), you can also use the free online charting service:

www.chartAll.com

Charts can be created from manually typed data, Google spreadsheets, data linked from url, etc.

Includes basic charts, XY charts, XYZ 3D charts, Gauges, Geographical (mapping / GIS) charts, financial OHLC, and much more.

regards
david
www.chartAll.com

chartall

April 20, 2007