Free Online Spreadsheet Applications
Free online spreadsheet resources fall into two categories: the first is web-based software that is part of a Microsoft Office-like Suite of applications (such as OpenOffice.org, that include a word processor, spreadsheet, et al.) Such Suites are also offered by Google and ThinkFree Office, below. The other category is a set of standalone online spreadsheets, such as EditGrid, below.
ajaxXLS Viewer is a web-based spreadsheet viewer that allows you to easily open any .xls file within your Firefox browser. Compatibility with Microsoft Excel and OpenOffice allows ajaxXLS to preserve all your common cell formatting categories such as text styles, decimals, currencies, dates, and times as well as formulas, backgrounds and borders from the original documents. The ajaxXLS web-based editor is still in the early stages of development. With it you can write, edit and save standard spreadsheet files to your local machine.
An online spreadsheet service with real-time-update and extensive collaboration features, and a good Web 2.0 counterpart of Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice Calc. It offers a free-of-charge service to personal users, with over 15,000 personal users signed up as of February, 2007. WikiPedia gives an excellent summary of this tool, its capabilities and comparative features.
In 2006 Google pruchased and merged two services, Writely and Spreadsheets, to create this online application. Documents and spreadsheets can be created within the application itself, imported through the web interface or sent via email. They can also be saved in a variety of formats to the user's computer. By default, they are saved to Google's servers. The open document is automatically saved to prevent data loss. Documents and spreadsheets can also be tagged and archived for organizational purposes. Collaboration between users is also a feature of Docs & Spreadsheets. Documents can be shared, opened, and edited by multiple users at the same time. The application supports popular Office file types such as .doc and .xls. It also includes support for the OpenDocument format. A free Google account is required.
ThinkFreeby Haansoft ThinkFree Co. Ltd., a subsidiary company of Haansoft Corporation, is an office suite written in Java that runs on Windows, Linux, and Macintosh platforms. ThinkFree Office includes a word processor (Write), a spreadsheet (Calc) and a presentation program (Show). ThinkFree Office reads and writes to Microsoft Office file formats (.doc, .xls, and .ppt). ThinkFree Office has a look and feel similar to Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, allowing users to switch over easily. Up to 1 GB free online storage is provided as well.
