Google Sheets: How to make spreadsheets better than Excel

It is known that the Excel is an excellent tool for working with spreadsheets, graphs, functions and other resources. If you use or have ever used, know the importance of having basic knowledge e in Excel.

However, at times we need to work with spreadsheets on computers that do not have Excel installed. With this, Google brought the possibility of acting online with spreadsheets and other documents for free. The cool thing is that the logic of Google Sheets is the same, so if you already knew Excel, you will not need to learn everything again, it already has a very similar structure.

But what about you, do you know how to use Google spreadsheets (or Excel spreadsheets)? Thinking through this, we separate a step by step so you can get to know this tool and use it to facilitate your daily activities when necessary. Follow our post and learn how to use Google spreadsheets!

Step 1: Login to the site

The first step to getting access to Google spreadsheets is through the link: https://drive.google.com

At this stage, in order to access Google Drive (the application that manages and stores the files), you need to get an email account in Gmail. If you do not already have an account, you can create it for free by visiting the following link: gmail.com

Once your Gmail account is provided, simply go to the Google Drive link and click the "Go to Google Drive”. In this way, the login will be done with the created or existing email account. After accessing, a new screen will be displayed as follows:

Step 2: Creating Worksheets

After accessing Google Drive, click the "New" button on the upper left side of the screen and choose "Sheets" as shown below:

A new tab will open the browser, where you will see the worksheet similar to Microsoft Office.

3: Step Using the Worksheet

After accessing the Google spreadsheet, it is possible to observe that the resources, despite being restricted, are still practically the same as those of Microsoft Excel. In the image below we have a simple example of using the spreadsheet where we will calculate each salesperson's commission based on 10% of total sales.

With this, just insert the following function.

At the end of the function, just hit enter and check the result.

With the use of the fill loop, we can still replicate the formula for the other cells.

Important: Google Drive features will be displayed in English. In this case, we recommend consulting the function translations (English - Portuguese) mentioned in this article.

4 Step: Saving and Renaming

Once you've created the spreadsheet, you can see that Google automatically saves all the transactions you've made. This does not run the risk of losing information created in cases of browser crashes or any other problem. In this way, the worksheet will be visible in a workspace just on the home page.

In any case, it is recommended to rename the spreadsheet with the desired name for better identification later. To do so, simply access: File tab> Rename ...

A new tab will open. In this case just enter the name you want and click OK and then the worksheet will be saved with the new name.

5 Step: Sharing the Worksheet

To share the spreadsheet with other people, just click the "Share" button in the upper right corner as shown in the image below:

This will open a new window where you can share it with specific people by entering their email addresses in the field.

If you want to make the worksheet accessible and editable for the whole audience, simply go to the Advanced option as shown in the image below.

Then select the "Change"

And finally, select the option "Enabled - Public Web" and click Save.

Note that Google will allow you to share your spreadsheet through a link or through social networks.

Observation: To re-access the worksheet after it's closed, simply log into Google Drive and access and click on the desired file under the "My Drive" option.

Based on the knowledge acquired here, it was possible to know the basic steps to use Google Spreadsheets.

Possible Applications:

At that point, you should be thinking about which types of worksheets would be well used in Google Sheets. Therefore, I will list below some applications that we believe are useful for your business:

Worksheet for Cost Control / Expenses: This is the most common type of spreadsheet use on google. You can make a quick list with total formula and also rank the expenses for both your business management and your home. Some people also call this type of personal budget worksheet or monthly expense control worksheet.

Inventory Control Worksheet: With a very similar cost sheet structure, you can create a quick list of all items in your inventory with check-in and check-out dates to control your flow and repurchase moment. If you are interested in this type of worksheet for excel, see this link our template template ready for use.

Spreadsheet for Financial Control: Evolving the cost / expense spreadsheet a little bit, by adding revenue control, you can easily make a complete financial spreadsheet of your business through google spreadsheets.

However, it should be noted that this tool has some feature restrictions compared to Microsoft Excel. On the other hand, it becomes an excellent resource when you do not have Excel installed on a computer or the flexibility of being able to share spreadsheets with other people and to be able to access it on any device that has an internet connection.

Did you like the tip? So to learn how to make spreadsheets in excel, see our courses and use your knowledge to make excel spreadsheets or spreadsheets online in google documents.