Good Spreadsheet app

[thefredelement]

I'm working on a bunch of pretty intensive spreadsheets... they're some pretty big output from a database dump (the db is pretty terminal in terms of data quality, making a traditional re-import into another database not worth the time of fixing it)

I've been trying to use Excel and Numbers, they both seem to really choke up handling this kind of data, especially with formulas.

I have a Mac Pro 4,1 2x 2.93 Xeons and 16GB of RAM. I need a spreadsheet program that will use this hardware and not get all choked up, any advice?

(In MenuStats I see both Excel & Numbers don't take advantage of any of the hardware really).

 

[maflynn]

I have to say the best spreadsheet app out there is MS excel, so I'm not sure who else to recommend.

Did you check out Libraoffice - the open source competitor to MS Office?

 

[Bear]

I'm working on a bunch of pretty intensive spreadsheets... they're some pretty big output from a database dump (the db is pretty terminal in terms of data quality, making a traditional re-import into another database not worth the time of fixing it)

I've been trying to use Excel and Numbers, they both seem to really choke up handling this kind of data, especially with formulas.
...

How big a spreadsheet are you talking about? From your comments, it almost sounds like you need a database program.

I have to say the best spreadsheet app out there is MS excel, so I'm not sure who else to recommend.

Did you check out Libraoffice - the open source competitor to MS Office?

Pretty much this, but I dount LibreOffice will be able to handle it either.

maflynn do you think FileMaker might be an option here?

 

[ozaz]

(In MenuStats I see both Excel & Numbers don't take advantage of any of the hardware really).

If you are able to, maybe try Excel 2013 on a Windows machine. I would imagine it can handle large spreadsheets better than Excel 2011 for Mac.

 

[MacUserUK]

Give OpenOffice.org a go

Other than that MS have the office suite pretty wrapped up

 

[GGJstudios]

I'm working on a bunch of pretty intensive spreadsheets... they're some pretty big output from a database dump (the db is pretty terminal in terms of data quality, making a traditional re-import into another database not worth the time of fixing it)

I've been trying to use Excel and Numbers, they both seem to really choke up handling this kind of data, especially with formulas.

I've used Excel for about the past 20 years, including extensive use of highly complex formulas and very large data sets. I've never had it "choke" unless the computer being used was not sufficient in terms of RAM or processor speed. Your Mac Pro should be more than sufficient. I couldn't recommend anything more powerful or capable than Excel.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Just to be clear -
You exported data from a DB (XLS, CSV...??), and are trying to apply formulas to it in Excel/Numbers? If so, how did the spreadsheet behave prior to applying formulas?

Just how many rows/records and columns/fields are involved?

(the db is pretty terminal in terms of data quality, making a traditional re-import into another database not worth the time of fixing it)

Poor-quality data can be just as much a problem for a spreadsheet as it is for a DB. You just may have to clean it up before applying the formulas.

 

[exegete77]

If Excel is choking, then you need database. Consider two alternatives from ProVue Panorama and Panorama Sheets

When I worked full time as an analyst for a Fortune 100 company, I imported huge mainframe data on demand, and Excel (Windows) handled it very well. I used VBA code to do that. I could downloaded hundreds of thousands of data points, automatically set up for viewing data for 99 markets, with nine outlets on a 13 week view. One cell could change all 99 worksheets.

That download and updates into Excel, then into PowerPoint took a total of 22 minutes.