[Macworld]

Post your comments for Excel 2008 vs. Numbers '08 here

[palane]

It would be nice to see NeoOffice mentioned in the context of the comparative review. Microsoft's decision to drop macros orphans anyone who invested time in developing macros. It's a shame as I put together a nice set of spreadsheets for my bowling league (I'm league secretary). A few macros cut an hour long and error prone exercise into something done in less than half an hour. I'd rather head over to NeoOffice and debug my macros than give them up altogether.
BB

[motley]

The biggest short coming for me is the way Numbers handles coping. When I copy a table in Numbers and try to paste it into Dreamweaver, all I get is plain text. I have to copy the table in Numbers paste it in Excel then recopy the table and paste it back into Dreamweaver. When I do this I get all my cells pasted in as a table. But of course I then have to strip out all the MS junk that was pasted as well. Wish there was a better way to import my info from Numbers to Dreamweaver!!!

[Hurley42]

Numbers has a superb interface that is easy to use and makes spreadsheets fun to use. However I have had to stick with Excel simply for the lack of trend lines and formula placement on scatter plots. I am not a macro user, so I have no complaints there but I can understand others' frustrations. I look forward to the day that I can use Numbers and still work with others who use Excel (unfortunately the majority of spreadsheet users). If Apple keeps investing in Numbers development, then it will quickly become a tool worthy of academic and business environments, among others. Until then, Numbers is merely a tool I use once in a while to see if it can do some particular task Excel does easily.

[Ronnie81]

Both Numbers and Excel 2008 has one huge drawback: The inability to add custom error bars to graphs. This makes both programs completely useless for scientific purposes. Since numbers is a new program I can understand that it does not yet have all the functionality as other programs. That Excel 2008 does not have it is unforgivable.. Microsoft omitted to include a feature that is included in Excel 2004, making Excel 2008 a utterly useless program for scientists.

[joshtogo]

The article neglects probably the most glaring omission in Numbers: the ability to freeze cells.

This lack means that any data entry of more than a few rows or columns requires constant scrolling and squinting to ensure correct entry. This renders the program almost unusable. It is particularly odd given the program's effective incorporation of headers and label columns. I thought that Apple would have set these fields to stay visible by default but they haven't even made this possible.

Until Apple enables a feature similar to Excel's freeze panes, Numbers will never be a viable alternative for anyone who has more information to enter than their kid's soccer roster, knitting circle's member list or pot luck supper schedule--and even these may be a stretch.

[motley]

That would be a great feature as well!!!!

[aangel]

100% agree with joshtogo. I gave up on Numbers the moment it became clear there was no way to freeze cells. That user interface deficiency was a deal-killer for me.
I have no doubt the next version will be better but if it still is missing the ability to freeze cell, I will continue to use and recommend Excel.

[dankothehun]

One spreadsheet alternative, albeit an expensive one, that was not mentioned is Quantrix. Iit blows Excel out of the water if you need any sort of multi-dimensional anaylsis. If you just need to make a list, Quantrix is too much, but for many business and scientific purposes, Quantrix has no equal.

[dreyfus]

As somebody whose spreadsheet needs are pretty basic, I really appreciate Numbers as a great and relatively bug-free version 1 software with a great interface and a great print layout feature that beats Excel handily in this regard. Still, even for my basic needs (no pivoting tables or advanced charts required) two things keep me from abandoning NeoOffice or Excel yet: 1) lack of cell freezing and 2) no way to rotate text in cells (it is nice to be able to place checkboxes in a column, but not much use if the heading cannot be rotated and consumes significant width.
If version 2 (or an intermediate update) corrects this, I am happy. Even more if a future version will make it possible to use Numbers tables (and maybe Filemaker DBs) as a data source for mail merge in Pages.

[DLC48]

I think the BIG thing the author missed is that this is version ?? of Excel ... I dunno version 10 ? ... i.e. it's been out there for > a decade ! If not as Excel, as MS Works. So the fact that Numbers is even in the same ballpark as the "older, tried and evolved" Excel is quite remarkable. i.e. Excel v10.0, 3.5 mice... Numbers v1.0, 3 mice... = great start !! I admit it's not quite there yet.. esp. in scientific calculating (me). But I bet Numbers v2.0 is better than Excel. And Apple does listen to your cries... so cell freezing will most likely be added, as well as more formulas, features, and templates.

David

[DisabledTrucker]

From the prospective of someone who doesn't use a spreadsheet at all, I found that although Numbers was missing a few functions it wasn't all that hard at all to put together a basic spreadsheet, especially when using a preformed one. I happened to like how it also did the graphs and everything for me automatically, even if I didn't need them. For the cost of it, it more than compares to and holds it's own against Microsoft's version vastly more expensive version.

[palane]

Multiplan was actually the predecessor to Excel. It was succeeded by Excel in 1985, so Excel has been out in the wild for >20 years.
With regards to scientific graphing, I chuckle internally whenever I see an obvious Excel plot. Excel's great for playing with numbers, but a dedicated graphing program is a must. Kaleidagraph is my favorite, though there are alternatives.
It would be nice if one could replace the chart module of Excel with another program, as MathType will do for equations in Word. Then again, such an approach would probably require macros, so we're SOL.
BB

[griffman]

David:

The flip side of your argument is just as persuasive: Excel has been on the market for nearly 20 years. The Numbers team certainly had the ability to purchase Excel, look at its features, and decide which to implement. The fact that they left out things like freezing cells, simple data entry validation, pivot tables, etc., clearly speaks that they are targeting Numbers at a different sort of spreadsheet user.

Each program's score is independent of others -- while we may discuss how one program compares to another, its score is based on how well it does what it purports to do.

-rob.