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trying to use Google Docs & Spreadsheets as fulltime replacement for Microsoft/Open Office on my secondary computer, I’m running into all sorts of shortcomings every day. opening an excel-spreadsheet containing several sub-sheets (but otherwise quite barebones) lead me to the error-message pictured below :(… I wonder why it’s limited to 20 sheets in particular, I mean, I’ld get 32, but 20?

Google Docs’ lack of support for headers and footers is another major reason why I think that Google isn’t yet there… way to go, until even the most basic functionality is covered…
(click for more posts tagged office-is-dead)

Google just released an API for their Spreadsheets product as part of the larger Google Data APIs (”GData”), which also allow 3rd parties to access Calendar, Base, Blogger and Code Search. the API supports read/write-access to existing documents, though - according to Google Blogoscoped - it’s not possible to create new spreadsheets (yet).

Philipp Lenssen from Google Blogscoped reports the recent integration of Google Spreadsheets into Gmail. when receiving xls-attachments, Gmail users are now given a direct link to open such files in Google Spreadsheets. a similar feature for Word-documents / Google Docs (ex Writely) is still missing but almost certain to follow soon.

Google finally integrated Writely (acquired in march 2006) and Google Spreadsheets in what would probably become Google Office at some point - Google Docs & Spreadsheets (http://docs.google.com). supplementing those Google Apps released a few weeks ago, the online office suite is now almost complete, the last piece of the puzzle still missing being a presentation-module (and maybe a database/-collection tool similar to Dabble DB). Docs & Spreadsheets manages text-documents and sheets in one central place, giving users access to export-, tagging-, sharing- and collaboration-features.

while collaborative features and user interface are now aligned equal in both Docs and Spreadsheets, some obvious functionality like direct embedding of tables into docs isn’t implemented yet. on a side note: Google Docs can easily publish to common blogging-systems (MoveableType, MetaWeblog, Blogger…). considering spell checking and instant saving of documents, this could make Google Docs an interesting alternative blog-editor (in fact this post was written that way).

earlier today, google labs started accepting applications for their public-but-limited beta of google spreadsheets (register for the beta now, accounts will be granted first-come, first-serve).

the product-tour highlights some promising features, f.e. microsoft excel-import & -export abilities (it seems unclear to me, how feature-complete this can/will be, I bet that it won’t be able to handle graphs and other rich content), easy sharing of sheets among friends, and simultaneous real-time editing of spreadsheets (!).

also check nicholas carr’s and michael arrington’s posts about google spreadsheets. michael points to some spreadsheet-alternatives which are ready-to-use: ZohoSheet, iRows and sumsum.