2 years ago I was converting my life over to Apple. Their users boast of the Mac processing speed and resistance to malware. I’d spent enough time and money cleaning up my PCs in spite of the firewalls, ad-blockers, malware detectors, and other counter-measures. So, I spent the money and got a Macbook Pro.
After just 24 hours, it was clear that there are significant differences between Excel for Mac and Excel on Windows. (To be fair, I must say this: Macs aren’t malware-proof, and I do spend the majority of my time on my Mac. Hardcore Excel, however … it’s Windows all the way!)
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EXCEL VERSIONS & GOOGLE’S SPREADSHEET?
This question comes up a lot. And in my workshop I am the heartbreaker who demonstrates something cool and then has to announce, “Sorry Mac users, you don’t have this available to you.” The this is usually slicers and pivot charts. Hardcore Excel users will discover even more differences; e.g. there is no “Retrieve Data From Web” for Mac users.
Google is coming along but has a long way to go.
EXAMPLE A friend was setting up a spreadsheet to manage the goals for a group of people. On Mondays people would enter the number of goals for the week. On Fridays they’d come back and enter the number of goals that were met.
PROBLEM What about a person who said they had 5 goals on Monday and comes back on Friday saying that they met 7 goals? No no no! That’s shady! It’s also easy to prevent in Excel. It’s not even possible to do in Google’s spreadsheet. Well … someone told me that it’s easy if you can program JavaScript.
But this isn’t the end of the conversation.
EXCEL USERS ON PC AREN’T IMMUNE TO THE WAILING & GNASHING OF TEETH
With Excel adding so many new features with each release, even PC users have to pay attention about version compatibility. This is one reason why I’ve decided to no longer support Excel 2003 in workshops and 1:1 sessions. Since 2003 Excel developers have made sweeter and powerful functions like COUNTIFS (2007) and IFNA (2013); and features like Slicers with Tables (2013). There is so much ease that’s been built into Excel in recent years that pedestrian users who are still using Excel 2003 should at least get to 2007.
Why pedestrian users? There are folks who insist that Excel 2003 is good enough. They tend to be those frighteningly smart Excel users who could program Excel to see into the future. For the rest of us, there’s too much efficiency and productivity available to stay with Excel 2003. So, let’s look at the differences …
I’ve compiled a list of differences. Have a look!
Puzzled Gold photo credit: andy.brandon50 via photopin cc
