Open and edit XLSX files without Excel

What comes through from Excel

• Every sheet, with its name and order, and the sheet that was open when the file was saved.
• Values and formulas. Formulas stay formulas and are recalculated by Octoolo: more than a hundred functions of its own, such as SUM, IF, VLOOKUP, XLOOKUP, SUMIF and TODAY, plus most other Excel functions through the formula.js library.
• Number formats: currency, percent, dates, times and custom codes.
• Cell formatting: bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, text and fill colors, font size, left, center or right alignment, and wrapped text.
• Column widths and frozen top rows.
• Text that looks like a number, such as an ID with leading zeros, stays text.

When you save, Excel's newer functions are written the way Excel expects, with the latest results stored alongside, so the workbook opens in Excel showing the right numbers straight away.

Where Spreadsheets stops

A message names these as the workbook opens, and they are not in the file you save:

• Charts and pivot tables
• Pictures and comments
• Merged cells, which are shown unmerged, with the content in the first cell
• Conditional formatting

A few things change without a message. Filters and drop-down lists made with data validation are not kept, frozen columns are not kept (frozen rows are), borders become a thin gray line on all four sides, and cells use the Calibri font when saved.

So the rule of thumb: for a budget, a list, a timesheet or a price sheet, edit away. For a dashboard full of charts and pivots, open it to read the numbers, and save any changes as a new file. Spreadsheets asks before replacing an original that lost something, with Save as a new file one click away.

Working in it

• The formula bar shows help for the function you are typing.
• AutoSum (Alt =) adds up the numbers above; its menu also gives an average or a count.
• The fill handle copies a formula down a column, with its references following.
• The status bar shows the sum, average and count of the selected cells.
• Sort A to Z or Z to A, find and replace, and insert or delete rows and columns, with formulas following.
• Sheets: add, rename (double-click the tab), duplicate, move and delete.

Undo goes back 200 steps, and a draft is kept every two seconds, so a closed window does not lose your work. The number format menu offers Number, Currency in dollars, euros, pounds or lira, Percent, Date, Long date, Time and Text, with buttons for more or fewer decimals. Ctrl / opens a search of the commands, for when you know what you want but not where it is.

Other ways to open an .xlsx on Windows

Excel for the web opens workbooks in a browser at no cost with a Microsoft account, after you upload them to OneDrive. Google Sheets does the same with a Google account. LibreOffice Calc, part of an open-source office suite, opens them on the PC without an account.

Spreadsheets is the lighter choice when the file should stay on your PC with no account and no upload. It shares one subscription with Documents, Presentations and every other Octoolo app, and opens CSV files too: see CSV to XLSX and XLSX to CSV. For workbooks built around charts or pivot tables, Excel remains the tool that keeps them.

On a PC that has Excel, double-clicking an .xlsx still opens Excel. To open the file in Spreadsheets instead, use Open a file or drop it on the start screen.