Spreadsheets have become an indispensable tool for work. They allow for good record keeping or personal organization. Therefore, they are considered a key pillar in society and in current work models.
At the moment, we have two main adversaries when it comes to spreadsheets, these are Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel. Below, we will frequently mention the advantages and differences between both to understand which one is the best. They each have their pros and cons, but the gap between them is narrowing day by day.
Reasons to use Microsoft Excel instead of Google Sheets
Microsoft Excel is the leading spreadsheet application par excellence. Microsoft Excel has a foothold in all companies, who make it the tool of choice to carry out their work. Its ease of use makes it worthy of first place as the favorite of many professionals.
1. Microsoft Excel - Widely used
Believe it or not, more and more people are taking the plunge and trying out Google Sheets . However, Microsoft Excel has a loyal and established user base that has not given up on using it.
According to experts, they consider the amount of time it takes for users to switch to the other application and become comfortable with it.
2. It has all the functions
Microsoft Excel is a top-notch application. Any application that is needed when working with a spreadsheet is built into Microsoft Excel .
Some of the advanced options that captivate users in this application are:
✔ Microsoft Excel has the Power Pivot and Power Query tools, which allow you to work with data sets of thousands of lines, and it is also possible to automate data transformations and updates.
✔ With Microsoft Excel it is possible to code with VBA to automate tasks, with an active community of scripts across the web that make repetitive tasks easier.
✔ Pivot Charts adapt to changing data and make it easy to create charts that automatically update as the underlying data changes.
3. Advanced Microsoft Excel
A couple of years ago, thinking about using a browser-based spreadsheet meant using Google Sheets , since Microsoft Excel wasn't a reality yet. However, now Microsoft has its latest update, Office 365 , which is a subscription-based version of the Office suite that includes updated versions of the application at all times.
Reasons to use Google Sheets instead of Microsoft Excel
We've already mentioned some reasons to make Microsoft Excel your favorite spreadsheet platform. But now, let's explain the advantages of Google Sheets . This tool is more than just a version of Microsoft Excel created by Google:
1. Google Sheets is always online
A big advantage of this version is how well it connects and integrates with other applications. We find that most of the data is not written from scratch, but is usually imported from other sources, such as from the web or other applications. .
2. Google Sheets is first in browsers
Remember that Microsoft already has a browser version for Microsoft Excel , but this is not its focus, unlike Google Sheets, which started out as a spreadsheet application that runs within a web browser.
3. Google Sheets - A simple and constantly evolving
One of the most notable features of this tool is that Google Sheets is fairly new. Newer applications discard the pre-established notions and repetitive programming of applications that have been around for a while.
While Microsoft Excel is full-featured and powerful in the spreadsheet world, Google Sheets is more user-friendly and removes some of the barriers.
Differences between Microsoft Excel vs Google Sheets
1. Features of Microsoft Excel vs Google Sheets
Initially, Google Sheets was behind Microsoft Excel , as the latter had been around for a couple of decades, but it didn't take long for Google to catch up.
That is why today, the functionality between Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets is very similar, since they have interfaces that are easy to use, extensive knowledge bases and a large number of tools and functions.
2. Offline access
Offline access is available for Google Sheets , but there are some drawbacks to accessing files that were previously created while online. However, Microsoft can set up your files to automatically sync through OneDrive as soon as you have internet access.
3. Functions and formulas
Despite Microsoft Excel's years of advantage over Google Sheets , the latter has quickly caught up with the addition of functions and formulas that Excel has long had and Google Sheets has not.
4. Collaboration
Compared to Google Sheets spreadsheets , Microsoft Excel is not a favorable tool for collaboration, which is why Google Sheets is ranked first and makes it the preferred tool for collaborative work, since it allows the connection between several users to the same document and at the same time.
5. Tool for statistical analysis
In this case, we must highlight the functionality of Microsoft Excel, since many formulas are integrated into Microsoft , unlike Google Sheets where if you want to create graphs or flowcharts, it must be done manually.
6. Auto-saved
Despite the features and benefits that Microsoft Excel has , files must be saved manually. The opposite happens with its adversary, as you work on it, everything you modify will be saved automatically.
As we have been able to demonstrate, both tools have their great functionalities, many of which differentiate them from each other and some which make them very similar. But if what you are looking for is a tool based on the cloud and on the collaborative system, our recommendation is to work with Google spreadsheets, Google Sheets.
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What else does Google Sheets offer?
Google Forms and Google Sheets complement each other. All responses entered into a survey made in Google Forms are sent directly to a Google Sheets spreadsheet for further analysis.
You can use Google Sheets ' spreadsheet functions to create different formulas and manipulate data, calculate numbers, etc. Remember that with Google Apps Script you can develop custom functions.
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Courses that may interest you
Do you want to learn more about financial tools? Check out our Excel 2019 courses : Complete, Excel 2019 for Finance and Business Analysis with Excel and Python.