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Alternatives to Excel that aren't LibreOffice Calc

I'm scouting around for programs that are very similar MS Excel. I tried LibreOffice, but unfortunately Calc seems to have quite poor filter options, so that is a no go. Can anyone recommend anything else?

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I've never used Google Sheets, but it is maybe something that you could consider?

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OpenOffice and LibreOffice appear to have the same limitations regarding filtering. For example, you cannot do something as simple as filtering according to cell colour (unless, I assume, you want to do some coding of your own). Google sheets also does not appear to support this functionality. Googling around, it is dismaying to see people repeatedly asking for this functionality and being told in reply that they shouldn't want it.

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20 minutes ago, DDebbil said:

OpenOffice and LibreOffice appear to have the same limitations regarding filtering. For example, you cannot do something as simple as filtering according to cell colour (unless, I assume, you want to do some coding of your own). Google sheets also does not appear to support this functionality. Googling around, it is dismaying to see people repeatedly asking for this functionality and being told in reply that they shouldn't want it.

You want the program to filter by the color of the cell? Unfortunately, I had found Google Sheets didn't support this.

I did found a way around it.

 

For some context; I have a sheet where I track some collectables; where red = I don't have it and green = I have it. I couldn't just color the cell green/red and be done with it.. The way I achieve this, was simply by making two filters:

1. when just the singular number '1' was entered in the cell; the text color and background color of this cell become green.

2. when the singular word 'no' appeared in the cell; the text and background color become red. 

 

So when, for example, I have column B filled with all the 1's and 'no's; I can simply do a  'COUNTA' of B to see the amount of entries, and a 'SUM' of B to get the amount of times I filled in '1'.

Code to do the Sum and Count:

=SUM(B:B) & "/" & COUNTA(B:B)

For example, if I had five row in column B, two of which filled with 'no', three with '1' this formula would look a little something like this:

image.png.4e216dfe8ac8b423658c2dbb6deb9b00.png

 

This is achieved with conditional formatting (which can be found in the 'Format' tab of Google Sheets) and can be put to use quite effectively.

Options:

Spoiler

image.thumb.png.ae9579c3123b0e2b6bc3648425c450ba.png

 

It's probably best though to maybe do conditional formatting on something not as simple as 'no' or '1', as of course data you don't want to be formatted shouldn't be formatted because it includes either one of these things.

You could do conditional formatting on some rather specific strings (e.g. 1 = A1234 and no = A9876) and count them like this (instead of Sum on the 1's):

=COUNTIF( B:B ; "A1234" )

 

 

This may not be exactly what you're looking for, but maybe it helps at least?

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1 hour ago, DDebbil said:

I'm scouting around for programs that are very similar MS Excel. I tried LibreOffice, but unfortunately Calc seems to have quite poor filter options, so that is a no go. Can anyone recommend anything else?

WPS office, if you are willing to pay, deal with annoying startup ads, or fight your way through ccircumventing them. Closest to MS I've seen, arguably better in many ways (like its night mode that prevents eye burn without just inverting color schemes).

 

Softmaker Office also has a decent free version, without invasive ads. More similar to Libreoffice, but in my experience worked better in Windows (I've had no problem in Linux, but my attempts at OpenOffice first and Libreoffice later all ran like shit on Windows-java).

 

I've tried a different one that was OK as well, but can't remember its name :P I'm always on the look for office software, especially spreadsheets. I think I could be on the paid version of WPS, but when I last checked pricing was quite steep even compared to MS (it may even have been subscription-based, which it's just not going to happen for me).

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I had a look at WPS office - and it is very close to MS Office but with a pricing model to match. Also the country of origin and the propensity to spam ads all over the place makes me wonder about security. 

 

Softmaker FreeOffice does seem to have a slightly better filter function than LibreOffice (at least for my needs) and a pretty decent interface - but still no filter by colour! I can probably use a helper column to aid the colour sorting, but still it baffles me that only Excel and WPS have managed to include this function.

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If out of recommendations, you can always work your way through the results at https://alternativeto.net/

The downside is that the comments there are unlikely to tell you if the specific feature you are after exists in a particular program.

 

@DDebbil : I've remembered the name of the other: Onlyoffice. It seems it may have some sort of color sort/filtering:

 

https://helpcenter.onlyoffice.com/ONLYOFFICE-Editors/ONLYOFFICE-Spreadsheet-Editor/UsageInstructions/SortData.aspx

 

Good luck!

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