Excel is known to be an excellent tool for working with spreadsheets, charts, functions and other resources. If you use it or have used it before, you know how important it is to have basic and advanced knowledge in Excel.
Anyway, in some occasions we have to work with spreadsheets on computers that don't have Excel installed. With this, Google has brought the possibility to act online with spreadsheets and other documents for free. The cool thing is that the logic of Google's spreadsheets is the same, so if you already knew Excel, you won't need to relearn everything, it already has a very similar structure.
But do you know how to use Google spreadsheets (or Excel)? Thinking about it, we separated things step by step so that you can get familiar with this tool and use it to make your daily activities easier if necessary. Follow our article and learn how to use Google spreadsheets!
Step 1: Login to the site
The first step to access Google Spreadsheets is the following link: https://drive.google.com
At this point, to access Google Drive (the application that manages and stores files), you need to get an email account in Gmail. If you don't have an account yet, you can create one for free by accessing the following link: gmail.com
Once you have provided your Gmail account, just access the Google Drive link and click on the "Go to Google Drive" button. This way, the connection will be made with the created or existing email account. After logging in, a new screen will appear as below:
Step 2: Creating records
After accessing the Google Drive, click on the "New" button at the top left of the screen and choose the "Google Spreadsheets" option as shown below:
A new browser tab will be opened where the spreadsheet similar to Microsoft Office will be displayed.
Step 3: Using the spreadsheet
After accessing the Google spreadsheet, you can see that the functionality, although limited, is still almost the same as that of Microsoft Excel. In the image below, we have a simple example of the use of the spreadsheet where we will calculate the commission of each salesperson based on the total sales.
With this, we will simply insert the following function.
At the end of the function, we just have to press the Enter key and check the result.
Thanks to the fill handle, we can still reproduce the formula for the other cells.
Important: Google Drive features will be displayed in English. In this case, we recommend you to consult the translations of the functions (English - Portuguese) mentioned in this article.
Step 4: Saving and renaming
After creating the spreadsheet, you can see that Google automatically saves all the operations performed. This way there is no risk of losing the created information in case of browser crash or any other problem. In this way, the spreadsheet will be visible on a desktop, directly on the home page.
In any case, it is recommended to rename the spreadsheet with the desired name for better identification later. To do this, simply access : Aquivo Guide.
A new guide will be opened. In this case, simply enter the desired name and click on OK and the spreadsheet will be saved with the new name.
Step 5: Share the worksheet
To share the worksheet with other people, just click on the "Share" button located in the upper right corner, as shown in the image below :
This will open a new window where it will be possible to share it with specific people by entering their email address in the field provided.
If you want to leave the spreadsheet accessible and editable for the whole audience, just access the Advanced option as shown in the image below.
Then select the "Change" option.
Finally, select the "Enabled - Web Public" option and click "Save".
Note that Google will allow the spreadsheet to be shared via a link or social networks.
Note: To access the spreadsheet again after it is closed, simply log into Google Drive and access and click on the desired file in the "My Drive" option.
With the knowledge gained here, it was possible to know the basic steps to use Google Spreadsheets.
Possible applications
At this point, you may be wondering what types of spreadsheets would work well in Google Sheets. So I'll list below some applications that we think would be useful for your business:
Spreadsheet for cost and expense control: this is the most common type of spreadsheet use in Google. You can make a quick list with a total formula and also categorize expenses for managing your business and home. Some people also call this type of spreadsheet "personal budget" or "monthly expense control spreadsheet".
Inventory Control Spreadsheet: with a very similar cost spreadsheet structure, you can create a quick list of all the items in your inventory with the dates received and issued to control your flow and time of redemption. If you are interested in this type of inventory for excel, see this link our ready to use spreadsheet template.
Financial control spreadsheet: by slightly evolving the cost/expense spreadsheet, adding revenue control, you can quietly make a complete financial spreadsheet of your business with Google spreadsheets.
Anyway, it is worth mentioning that this tool has some resource restrictions compared to Microsoft Excel. On the other hand, it becomes an excellent resource when you don't have Excel installed in a computer or for the flexibility of being able to share spreadsheets with other people and access them in any device with an Internet connection.
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