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All iPads Just started using Numbers instead of Excel today on Ipad - its works great for me! :)

M

Marty_Macfly

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 26, 2020
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Hi All,


Some good news :)

Missus wanted a spreadsheet for inventory management for the larder.

A nice and simple spreadsheet.... (List of food stuffs, rag rating colours for when approaching sell by dates etc.)

I gave Numbers a go - it works well for this kind of thing! :)


Also:
The spreadsheet is shared to her iphone, my iphone and my Ipad - it updates like lightening

we all can interactively update the inventory as we go, without holding a large laptop device in a cramp larder etc.


.... and she has an old iphone 5se! And it works Fine for this - no problems.....
wow. Great phone out the box.... still great today.


Good one apple! :)




Regards
Martin
 
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Excel on Office 365 works well across multiple devices, too. But if you don't have Office 365, it's an unnecessary cost for iOS users since Numbers is free and iCloud is free to cheap and both are very well supported across iOS and Mac devices and works well with all other iOS features. If cost isn't a concern, then it comes down to preference. I'm not a big spreadsheets person, so I don't know what features make the difference for people. For your purpose, either one works well and it really doesn't matter what service you choose. It's pretty great that Apple offers it's office software for free with purchase of their devices. Removes some of the headaches of finding and using other software and services to do the same thing.
 
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Numbers features are not as elaborate as Excel, but they are quite good. I built a complicated document that has some 40+ tables in it, set up so that I can just type a name into a box and it will be able to locate and reference data from the table with that name, which will be in another part of the document. In some ways, Numbers can be more useful than Excel.

The biggest convenience that is missing is cmd-click: the ability to select a bunch of non-contiguous cells. But that is just a convenience. It just occasionally means I have to do more steps to get stuff done. Not that often, really.

The other broad issue I have is g-dm Helvetica, everywhere. As the go-to font for everything, it is largely tolerable, but where numeric values are concerned, it sucks the big one. Why? My eyes are old and tired. Helvetica has a great big roof over sixes and floor under nines that makes distinguishing 6, 8, 9 and 0 challenging at small sizes. I would greatly appreciate it if Numbers would allow me to choose my default font (e.g., Optima is very good) instead of forcing to format away from Helvetica all the time.
 
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Marty_Macfly said:
Hi All,


Some good news :)

Missus wanted a spreadsheet for inventory management for the larder.

A nice and simple spreadsheet.... (List of food stuffs, rag rating colours for when approaching sell by dates etc.)

I gave Numbers a go - it works well for this kind of thing! :)


Also:
The spreadsheet is shared to her iphone, my iphone and my Ipad - it updates like lightening

we all can interactively update the inventory as we go, without holding a large laptop device in a cramp larder etc.


.... and she has an old iphone 5se! And it works Fine for this - no problems.....
wow. Great phone out the box.... still great today.


Good one apple! :)




Regards
Martin
Click to expand...
I have been using Numbers instead of Excel for years now (since 2011).
 
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Thanks for sharing your experiences with Numbers. One of the things that I like about Apple iWork is that I can seamlessly work on documents on my iPad, iMac, MBA, Windows laptops and chromebooks (via the web version).

People rag on Numbers for lacking so many features when compared to Excel, but the functions that DO exist allow one to do more than what initially seems possible... that is with the newer, more limited version. Numbers from iWork '09 had more functionality.
 
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I have been using Numbers exclusively for a year or more since I retired and lost access to my company Office suite. It is definitely different and I miss things like pivot tables. However, there are work arounds and it does great for what I need these days.
 
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Marty_Macfly said:
Hi All,


Some good news :)

Missus wanted a spreadsheet for inventory management for the larder.

A nice and simple spreadsheet.... (List of food stuffs, rag rating colours for when approaching sell by dates etc.)

I gave Numbers a go - it works well for this kind of thing! :)


Also:
The spreadsheet is shared to her iphone, my iphone and my Ipad - it updates like lightening

we all can interactively update the inventory as we go, without holding a large laptop device in a cramp larder etc.


.... and she has an old iphone 5se! And it works Fine for this - no problems.....
wow. Great phone out the box.... still great today.


Good one apple! :)




Regards
Martin
Click to expand...
I've used Numbers for years and love it, especially how it syncs between devices seamlessly. I stopped using Office about 10 years ago when I got an 11" MacBook Air. For a while, I just used Open Office. Eventually when Numbers became free, I fell for it. The best part is that it's truly optimized for touch. I had a student with a Surface about 4 years ago, and he said that he was jealous because Office wasn't really optimized for touch on the device.
 
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I use Numbers everyday, and it works well for our family real estate business. Primarily, I use it for analyzing income and expenses, tracking maintenance and repair projects, and keeping business contact lists. These are not highly sophisticated spreadsheets, but they get the job done. I like the fact that Numbers syncs and works seamlessly across my MBA, iPad, and iPhone. Also, the price is right. :)
 
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I personally find Numbers on iOS and iPadOS to be the app that best represents what a touch interface on a mobile device can do abpve and beyond the desktop.

Some things are actually easier to do in Numbers for the iPad (like forms for data entry). Haptic feedback when scrolling (iOS), content pickers for cells, etc.
 
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I forced myself to use Numbers on ipad as I don’t intend to pay costly subscription plan for MS Office, and find G-Suite is not practical and needs to be connected to the internet.

For basic task, it’s very doable and does it nicely with touch, keyboard and pointer.
But will have to look somewhere else for advance features such as macros.
 
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Hi guys,

Many thanks for the info :)


The way I look at it is:


1. Integrated seamlessly with iphone and ipad.
- so good that it just works, and works well :)


2. Optimised Apple products.
- no one has picked up on - It works like lightning on my missus’s 5 year old Iphone 5se! That is awesome!



3. Really good see different approaches and app that work for different input approaches:
- Be good to do personal spreadsheet a different way, and not the work mode OTT options excel Madness.

Apple Numbers:
- Touch based
- Comes from an “arty” place - music, photos, ipad drawings etc etc.
- yes, the “Cells” suggestion is a brilliant idea - no searching in all the menu options in excel for what you want.


Windows excel:
- Very office traditional based
- Keyboard mouse set up 1st and foremost,
- Very scientific and OTT menu options and approach to calculus.


I was expecting to do a complex formula like excel,

Rather than the Numbers option of:
In the next x month
Etc...



Cheers
Martin
 
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Numbers is a black eye for Apple. For several years we’ve been hearing how powerful the iPad is, but Apple only provides token enhancements to Numbers. They should port the Mac version over. Most newer iPads have the storage and horsepower to run it. Seriously, you can’t even hide a cell or range of cells, let alone a column or row. Basic stuff here. Lots of other enhancements could be done as well, to enhance overall iPad usability, like fix the darn Magic Mouse so I can scroll, as on the iMac. And don’t even get me started about the anemic Siri, which can do so many things on MacOS, but not on the iPad. I’ve got a list. Had to get a used windows laptop to do my major spreadsheets.. Apple is more concerned with emoticons than real features.
 
Global_traveler said:
They should port the Mac version over. Most newer iPads have the storage and horsepower to run it. Seriously, you can’t even hide a cell or range of cells, let alone a column or row.
Click to expand...

Huh? You can certainly hide rows or columns in Numbers on iPad. Hiding cells is a different matter, that is a pretty special function even in Excel.
 
Hunter5117 said:
Huh? You can certainly hide rows or columns in Numbers on iPad. Hiding cells is a different matter, that is a pretty special function even in Excel.
Click to expand...

Hiding rows and columns on iPad?......it’s super easy, barely an inconvenience. 😆

Seriously, I agree. You just tap on the column or row heading and select hide Or un-hide. Very intuitive and simple.
 
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Mainsail said:
Hiding rows and columns on iPad?......it’s super easy, barely an inconvenience. 😆

Seriously, I agree. You just tap on the column or row heading and select hide Or un-hide. Very intuitive and simple.
Click to expand...

You can also "hide" the contents of a cell or range of cells just by changing the font color to match the background. Along with moving them to an un-obvious place and even lock them from change, and they are pretty safe from tampering.
 
Global_traveler said:
Numbers is a black eye for Apple. For several years we’ve been hearing how powerful the iPad is, but Apple only provides token enhancements to Numbers. They should port the Mac version over. Most newer iPads have the storage and horsepower to run it. Seriously, you can’t even hide a cell or range of cells, let alone a column or row. Basic stuff here. Lots of other enhancements could be done as well, to enhance overall iPad usability, like fix the darn Magic Mouse so I can scroll, as on the iMac. And don’t even get me started about the anemic Siri, which can do so many things on MacOS, but not on the iPad. I’ve got a list. Had to get a used windows laptop to do my major spreadsheets.. Apple is more concerned with emoticons than real features.
Click to expand...

All due respect, you’re ranting about a lot of things that have nothing to do with Numbers on an iPad, like the performance of Siri or Apple implementing Unicode features.

As for hiding rows and columns, you can absolutely do that. I don’t know what hiding a cell means. I’ve never had to do that in 30 years of using spreadsheets and am not even sure how that would work.

What features are you actually missing? Curious to know. I have some huge spreadsheets with multiple sheets and multiple tables per sheet (that latter feature i really find useful).

Edit: i see now others already pointed out row and column hiding. lol.
 
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Have been a casual Excel and Word (actually started with WordPerfect for DOS) user for years, transitioned to Libre Office. Am considering Numbers and Pages. Do documents import/export to/from Numbers/Pages into the MS or LibreOffice equivalents cleanly or do they require some tweaking afterwards?

Just ventured into the Mac world (2nd hand 2012 MBP) but long time iPhone and iPad user with Windows machines, so envision a need for compatibility between Mac and Window OSes.

Or maybe use Libre Office on MBP—is there compatibility issues between the Mac and Windows versions?
TIA
 
clueless88 said:
Do documents import/export to/from Numbers/Pages into the MS or LibreOffice equivalents cleanly or do they require some tweaking afterwards?
Click to expand...

Yes, Numbers will import/export to Excel format on both Mac as well as on iPad. Pages does the same for Word. I haven't used this so I can't comment on any compatibility issues that may be there but the core functionality is there. FYI on iPad I am using the iPadOS 14 beta so this may be a recent upgrade, someone else can verify that or not. I do know the import from MS has been there for a while.
 
Never thought to do spreadsheets or word processing on my iPad! Will give it a whirl! Thank you!
 
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