There is no good spreadsheet software for Mac...

[coupdetat]

It's true.

I have a 3000-row spreadsheet I need to work on for my biomedical engineering class. It's an output from Abaqus. What's becoming painfully obvious to me is that there is absolutely no decent spreadsheet software available on Mac!! I have a MBA C2D 1.6 with 80gb hard drive.

-Numbers is horribly slow. It's unusable, even on brand new Macs.

-NeoOffice was unable to open my file because it was too big... which is pathetic considering it is only a few hundred kb. CPU usage rose to 170% and the fans were cranking. So much for open source.

-Office 2008 is also pathetically slow.

-In fact, even Office 2007 is ridiculously slow on PC... way too slow for any hardcore data-crunching.

What am I left with? I have an iMac G3 600mhz with OS9, and I've resorted to using AppleWorks to work on my spreadsheet WTF is wrong with computing these days?

 

[benlangdon]

It's true.

I have a 3000-row spreadsheet I need to work on for my biomedical engineering class. It's an output from Abaqus. What's becoming painfully obvious to me is that there is absolutely no decent spreadsheet software available on Mac!! I have a MBA C2D 1.6 with 80gb hard drive.

-Numbers is horribly slow. It's unusable, even on brand new Macs.

-NeoOffice was unable to open my file because it was too big... which is pathetic considering it is only a few hundred kb. CPU usage rose to 170% and the fans were cranking. So much for open source.

-Office 2008 is also pathetically slow.

-In fact, even Office 2007 is ridiculously slow on PC... way too slow for any hardcore data-crunching.

What am I left with? I have an iMac G3 600mhz with OS9, and I've resorted to using AppleWorks to work on my spreadsheet WTF is wrong with computing these days?

Get a fully loaded mac pro and see if the cpu goes of 10%

 

[wordmunger]

Try openoffice. I've had good luck with large spreadsheets.

 

[yellow]

WTF is wrong with computing these days?

Well, for starters, you're trying to do some number crunching with a computer built for basic internet activities.

Just try Office 2004. Despite it being a PPC app and needing to use Rosetta, it's still faster than Office 2008.

 

[redwarrior]

OpenOffice 3.0 has performed very well for me so far, and runs much faster than Office2008 for Mac.

Also, don't forget about Google spreadsheets.

 

[FJ218700]

^^^ yeah office 2004 works fine for me.

my spreadsheets typically contain up to 50,000 rows x 20-30 columns.

no prob.

 

[plumbingandtech]

Shhsshh... don't tell that to the millions of people that get work done with excel for mac each day.

 

[FJ218700]

Shhsshh... don't tell that to the millions of people that get work done with excel for mac each day.

don't tell microsoft either,

50% of their software revenue last year came from office 2004 and office 2008

 

[iShater]

I still use Office X (and 2004 on another system). No issues.

Do the applications just have a problem with opening and displaying the file?

 

[coupdetat]

Thanks, I'll give Office 2004 a shot. I've heard it is glitchy under Rosetta, though.

 

[aarchitect]

You might try the new beta of Lotus Symphony, http://bit.ly/11RKx

You might remember Lotus had a program back in the day called 1-2-3. This version is by a little startup called IBM but I don't know if they know anything about real business applications.

 

[FJ218700]

Thanks, I'll give Office 2004 a shot. I've heard it is glitchy under Rosetta, though.

I don't think it is glitchy at all. I run my workbooks off of my iDisk, switching constantly between my Pro, PB, and MB

I never get crashes.

 

[nadyne]

50% of their software revenue last year came from office 2004 and office 2008

While MacBU is a profitable division of Microsoft, we definitely do not account for half of the revenue of this company.

Regards,
Nadyne.

 

[exegete77]

While MacBU is a profitable division of Microsoft, we definitely do not account for half of the revenue of this company.

Regards,
Nadyne.

Ah, 'fess up, Nadyne! We know the luxury trips every quarter .... to Seattle...

401K's that out of this world.










Just pulling your leg as I begin an extended period of travel again.

 

[FJ218700]

While MacBU is a profitable division of Microsoft, we definitely do not account for half of the revenue of this company.

Regards,
Nadyne.

give us a few years

 

[soms]

Get Office 04. I know it sounds ridiculous but its WAY faster and more stable than 08. I tried out 08 an had nothing but trouble, not to mention it lacked the ability to use solver and some other thing as well.

 

[dukebound85]

It's true.

I have a 3000-row spreadsheet I need to work on for my biomedical engineering class. It's an output from Abaqus. What's becoming painfully obvious to me is that there is absolutely no decent spreadsheet software available on Mac!! I have a MBA C2D 1.6 with 80gb hard drive.

-Numbers is horribly slow. It's unusable, even on brand new Macs.

-NeoOffice was unable to open my file because it was too big... which is pathetic considering it is only a few hundred kb. CPU usage rose to 170% and the fans were cranking. So much for open source.

-Office 2008 is also pathetically slow.

-In fact, even Office 2007 is ridiculously slow on PC... way too slow for any hardcore data-crunching.

What am I left with? I have an iMac G3 600mhz with OS9, and I've resorted to using AppleWorks to work on my spreadsheet WTF is wrong with computing these days?

copy appleworks on a usb drive and put it on your imac. i do that

 

[bigjnyc]

I think what you need is a new computer, i have a sheet similar in size with financial data and formulas which i bring home from work and it runs fine on my iMac with excel 2008.

 

[Doctor Q]

Office 2004 was pretty fast, even on old hardware. The first-released version of Office 2008 was unable it was so slow. After the first software updates, it became tolerable but I still wouldn't call it speedy.

 

[Hidden Uchiha]

I Agree open office uses less RAM and is opensource on the site http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/unix_open_source/openofficeorg.html

 

[MisterMe]

...

I have a 3000-row spreadsheet I need to work on for my biomedical engineering class. It's an output from Abaqus. What's becoming painfully obvious to me is that there is absolutely no decent spreadsheet software available on Mac!! ...

It sounds to me like you are using the wrong tool for the job. For many engineering applications, a spreadsheet may be a very blunt instrument. You might be better served by explaining exactly what it is that you are trying to do. One of us may be able to identify a more appropriate software title for the job.

 

[jodelli]

Seriously a G3 iMac is going to be slow with any new software. I'm glad you discovered AppleWorks as I once found it useful to bring spreadsheets home to work on.

 

[mkrishnan]

It sounds to me like you are using the wrong tool for the job. For many engineering applications, a spreadsheet may be a very blunt instrument. You might be better served by explaining exactly what it is that you are trying to do. One of us may be able to identify a more appropriate software title for the job.

I would just echo this comment... if you end up finding every version of Excel is just too slow... this is probably something where you should be shoving it from Abaqus into Matlab or Mathematica and not Excel to begin with....

But 3,000 rows should be well within the capability of Excel, assuming that there is not an insane number of columns. I've used spreadsheets with thousands of rows and you know, 25-50 columns all the time without too much trouble.

 

[brop52]

Office 08 works fine on my iMac/MB. It's quicker than 04 when I had it on my iMac. Just make sure everything is updated and you have enough RAM. (Hence the problem with the MBA with the added underclocked CPU.)

 

[NewSc2]

Sigh, that's one of my bigger issues with Mac. My 5-year-old PC opens Excel XP without a hitch and doesn't lag throughout. Excel lags on my MBP, and still kind of lags on my Mac Pro.