[hautster]

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I'm quite looking forward to giving it a try. I hardly ever use Excel because I can never figure out what I want to do with it, but the idea that I can put a graph and table on one sheet and have the graph dynamically update as I change numbers with a slider seems ideal for teaching purposes. For example, I could use the ideal gas law (PV=nRT), or kinetic data, and show how results vary with different parameters.
I hope it will be able to handle most of these things. I guess I will find out tomorrow.

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This is what is awesome. I hardly know anything about chemistry or mathematics, but hearing how versatile a spreadsheet software can be because the ideas that users have is kind of mind blowing.
I am always amazed to hear how people are using software that was not specifically created for their need, and are using it in versatile ways. I think about how Adobe created a second version of Photoshop because it was being used in the medical, engineering and chemistry fields, to name just a few. This is what drives software innovation!

[booga]

From the review I'm unclear on how the data is represented. Does each table have its own set of cell data, or is each table a different window on the sheet's data?

[Rhywun]

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I think Apple has been careful not to come out with a direct replacement for Excel. There's room for both products in this market.

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I totally agree. For my needs this is totally better than Office. And when I DO need Office it will be Neo. Anyway I hope Apple have something up their sleeves for when that MS Office agreement ends.
Two more issues:
1. How do I "freeze" the top row like in Excel? I searched forever with no luck.
2. Has anyone else peeked into the .numbers file? I dragged it into TextMate and got a package structure which contains a thumbnail of your document among other things. Then there's a zipped file in there which contains an .xml file. When I try to open the .xml file--Mac freezes! Just a warning.

[Rhywun]

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NeoOffice and OpenOffice are the Excel competitors -- Numbers is definitely not.

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If Numbers stops some people from buying MS Office (as it will me), is it MOST DEFINITELY competition, regardless of the feature-set.

[tkaiser]

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....
But let's face facts. Numbers' entire mode of operation is a direct copy of Trapeze (luckily for us, a really good one). ...
Trapeze ran rings around M$ Excel, in it's time (Excel v1.5, I still get nightmares), and could do math that still leaves the CURRENT version of Excel in the dust (aka arrays, vectors, and matrices - some of us are engineers, not accountants). It's a welcome update to, but still a blatant copy of Trapeze. And Trapeze came out 20 years ago!

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I wish I could agree completely with this.

(Yep) Trapeze still leaves the CURRENT version of Excel in the dust.
(Yep) some of us are engineers, not accountants
(Nope) a direct copy of Trapeze (luckily for us, a really good one).

On the surface Numbers has the same look as Trapeze. You could create
a block at some arbitrary place on a page and type in a formula.
Underneath it looks like Numbers is basically still rows and
columns.
I think the ability to work with arbitrary placement of data in
Trapeze was much stronger. When you referenced a block it was
referenced as a matrix of vector. For example if you had a column
of numbers called X containing 1 to 100 you could create a new block,
say Y and enter the formula sin(2piX/100). Y would auto-size to
match the size of X. If X was 2d then Y would be 2d also. You could
create a plot simply by creating a new block and entering lineplot(X,Y)
X and Y need not be anywhere close to each other on the page.
In Numbers how would you create a chart containing a plot of sin(x)
and cos(x) and sqrt(x) It Trapeze this could be done creating a block
to contain X and then one containing lineplot(x,sin(x),con(x),sqrt(x))
Here is a challenge...
Find the easiest way to do that in Numbers.
By the way...
The company that I worked for at the time used Trapeze in some
calculations in support of the negotiations for the Nuclear Test
Limitation Treaty.

[OM_user]

I'm not a heavy Excel user, so Numbers seems absolutely perfect for my needs. When I use calculations in Excel they're usually limited to the most common ones, which Numbers supports.
However I DO use split views from time to time, so I hope Apple adds that in at some point, or perhaps there's a way to do it now and we just haven't discovered it. Split panes is very useful, so i'll miss that in Numbers.
I love that Numbers overcomes one of the biggest frustrations I've had with Excel; the fact that each table is independent, and resizing a column or row in one table does not affect other tables adjacent to it. I've always had to use crazy workarounds like merging and splitting cells to get the look in my spreadsheets that I was looking for.
Speaking of splitting and merging, I noticed that merging two cells in Numbers keeps both cell values and actually puts them into the one cell, unlike Excel which warns you it will lose the values in all cells except the upper left. If you merge a bunch of cells in a column, it creates the new single large cell with each line of data on it's own line, with carriage returns after each piece of data, if that makes any sense. That seems awesome to me, but it may be a cause of concern for some long-time Excel users who have come to expect the opposite result.
Overall, I think Apple has a real hit with the new iWork and iLife suites. To me, these were the most exciting parts of Tuesday's announcements. I'm still uncertain about how I feel with the new iMac.

[griffman]

Each table has its own set of cell data, starting at A1. If you put a formula in TABLE2 and point-and-click into TABLE1's cell C3, for instance, you get "=TABLE1:C3" (or something about like that).
When you export back to Excel, Numbers converts each table into a sheet in a new Excel workbook (and it even makes an index sheet, which is really nice).
-rob.

[heisetax]

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The stated reason for dropping VBA is that it was "too difficult" to do.
-rob.

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That also was MS's reason for being very late shen they finally came out with their 1 version of Virtual PC for the Mac. It also has come close to their reason for being later than expected with MS Office 2008. Where are the programmeers with those needed abilities?
Bill the TaxMan

[heisetax]

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I've used Excel for over 22 years now & SuperCalc before that. Since Excel could do so much more that SuperCalc the change was much easier.
Bill the TaxMan

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Hi
How can you be using Excel for 22 years, when it was first introduced not until 1987 (as far as I know...)
I think some folks here are comparing strawberries with raspberries. Excel and Numbers are two distinct applications. Why should Numbers replace Excel on your desktop? If your duties rely on heavy spreadsheeting and sharing data with others, I think you can not replace Excel. But if you're like 80% of spreadsheet users, who do fairly simple calculations for their own use, you can get along very well with Numbers.
-MacMies-
from Finland

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For Mac Users Word was introduced in 1984 & Excel was introduced in 1985. a MS-DOS/Windows version was supposedly made in late 1987. Excel was slow in upgrading their Mac version of Excel from the beginning. It was 1988 before version 1.6 was out and 1989 before version 2.2 came out. Version 2.0 was a Windows version earlier in 1989.
Excel has been around almost as long as the Mac. Word has been around longer. PowerPoint was purchased by MS. For that reason many Mac Users used PowerPoint before MS was the owner. This is all old history now. But if you have used a program for over 2 decades it is hard to want or need to change.
Hopefully Numbers will be like Mac OS X. I did not like the beta, versions 10.0 & 10.1. But I purchased them & tried to find uses for them. Finally when Mac OS 10.2 came out I started using Mac OS X on a regular basis. I still keep a PowerMac around that will boot in OS ( if needed. As expected that feature is not used very much. Mac OS 10.4.10 is used daily with it.
The same may hold true with Numbers. At least I hope that it does. By time my 30-day trial is over I'll probably purchase iWork '08. I'll keep seeing if I can replace Excel.
Actually my biggest problem with Numbers is not that it would only read 1 of my 67 sheets, it is how much I'd have to change my everyday data entry habits. Just as Mac OS X was not rally ready for Prime Time Use untile later in 10.1 or like when I used it in version 10.2, it is hard to expect Numbers to be ready for prime time with its first version. Just some wishful thinking I guess.
The sliders feature looks like something that could be very useful as more of my customers want more what if income & resulting tax options. If I can tie Numbers into my sheets that have been unreadable then I'll report back with a little smiley face.
The lack of macro support will keep Numbers from use by many. This will also keep many from updating to xcel 12.0/2008. But at least Excel 12.0 supports AppleScript.
Whichever spreadsheet I'll be using I'll still be using it on my Mac.
Bill the TaxMan

[budopo]

I use Excel to plot test data (and do some basic calculations), so if Numbers can import txt files with 20,000 or 30,000 rows, with each txt file becoming a column in the Numbers table, and then make nice column headers and line graphs, I'd be a happy camper.

[oaktownman]

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. . . no, I won't be upgrading to Office 2008. Like so many others, the VBA Macro support is just too key to Microsoft Office for me to even think about purchasing a version that doesn't have it.

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Me, too. A step backwards.

[ohno]

I have found the tutorials on Macscripter to be excellent sources of information. The community there is also very helpful.

[Nyhthawk]

For Automator information, links, examples, and downloads chech out: AUTOMATOR.US

BTW, MacTech magaize has produced a 150 page guide on converting your macros from VBA to AppleScript, including a section on Excel. VBA Transition Guide If you're interested in learning how to use AppleScript with Excel and Office, this guide is a must-have.

[BradPDX]

I am a fairly lightweight spreadsheet user - while I am an engineer, spreadsheets just don't enter into my specific tasks very often, and are primarily something I use for my own projects and needs. Like many, Excel is my standard by default without any reference to merits; it has always been "there", no matter how much overkill it represents.
That said, Numbers looks promisingly streamlined and I will give it a try.
On my C2D iMac I have both MS Office 2004 and NeoOffice, and wind up preferring NeoOffice much of the time. The last several updates have made NeoOffice fast and stable, it looks great and has a boatload of features. I look forward to the truly "native" version of OpenOffice that is in the works.
Judging by what I read in various Mac forums, many others feel similarily about NeoOffice. Which makes me wonder: outside of these forums, when will Macworld review this much lauded free suite? I'd love to see a bit more analysis.