How is MS Excel Different from Google Sheets
Microsoft Excel is one of the widely used spreadsheet software across many organizations. But, in recent times this spreadsheet software is getting a stiff competition from Google spreadsheets. Even though the Microsoft is leading the race but Google is covering the distance at a pretty fast pace. If we compare both these spreadsheet softwares, MS Excel has been in the business for quite some time and Google spreadsheet is relevantly new in comparison to Microsoft Excel. In this article, we will be focusing on the pros and cons of these both spreadsheet softwares.
Lets begin with Google spreadsheet, one of the biggest advantage of using Google spreadsheets is that it is available for free and it is compatible with Google docs. You can easily share these docs with your team or other members very easily. You have to just add the recipient's email address and you can share your documents. Google docs also provide you with some security features such as edit access. If you don’t want the recipient to make any changes to the Google docs then you can deny him edit access. The edit access permissions must be specified by the owner of the Google spreadsheet at the time of sharing the document with the recipients.
If we look at the MS Excel spreadsheet, this spreadsheet software is not free. But around the world, people are more comfortable using MS Excel spreadsheets in comparison Google sheets. Most of the organizations across the globe use MS Excel and are well versed with all its features. This is one of the biggest advantages MS Excel has over its competitor. People around the world are more acquainted with MS Excel. MS Excel is taught as a subject in many schools and universities across the globe, but its very hard to find this in Google's case. But MS Excel spreadsheets cannot be directly shared with other people it has to be done using an email. The sender has to send Excel sheet as an attachment to the recipient, and the recipient has to download this attachment and view it. According to company officials, MS Excel has addressed this issue in their forthcoming version. According to officials, the new MS Excel 2016 will include a “Share” option, that will allow the user to directly share the information with other team members or group, and apart from these features there will more enhanced features that MS Excel users can watch out for in the MS Excel version.
But, if we compare the security features of MS Excel with Google spreadsheets, then MS Excel has the upper hand. The data or information in MS Excel sheet can be encrypted and sent to the recipient, and only the recipient can view the data. Most of the people around the globe are more familiarized with features of MS Excel such as formulas, filters that are used for processing the data. But that is not the case with the Google sheets. People have to still get familiarized with these features in Google spreadsheet software.
Google has an edge over Excel as it supports huge cloud storage capacity. Though Microsoft too offers the option of storing Excel spreadsheets in Skydrive and Dropbox, but Google is far more superior in terms of cloud storage, and it can be easily accessed by the user using their Google account. But Google spreadsheets lacks some features that MS Excel has, Google does not support track changes feature, it just allows simultaneous editing feature
MS Excel is better than Google sheets when it comes to representing data in graphical format. MS Excel has wide range of charts which a user can choose from for representing their data. Google spreadsheet software also supports graphical images, but MS Excel has an edge over Google spreadsheets.
MS Excel also allows you to convert your data into different formats. The data available in MS Excel spreadsheet can be easily converted into PDF or MS Word. You can also convert the data available in PDF and Word and then into Excel spreadsheet. But it is not the same with the Google spreadsheet software.
Conclusion
Well, Google spreadsheets and Microsoft both have their advantages. One software has better storage space and the other has good graphical options. MS excel is paid and on the other hand Google spreadsheet is available for free. Both these spreadsheets are good, it depends upon the user requirements, and which software serve their needs better.