Tables: Bringing The Spreadsheet Back

Almost as if by definition, managing a spreadsheet is a dry and boring affair. So when you’ve got to work in a spreadsheet, it’s nice to do it in an environment that makes the task easy, or at least comfortable. For a very long time Microsoft’s Excel has been “the name” in spreadsheets on both the Mac and PC. To be fair, it’s not a completely undeserved honor, but Excel is still a behemoth of an application, is fairly expensive and is not a Universal Binary Application. Luckily, for those of us that need to create spreadsheets on the Mac, there are a number of great alternatives including the indie-developed Tables, by Daniel Schwill.

Naturally the first thing I noticed about Tables was it’s price. Tables is offered as shareware for 34 Euro, which is around US$55. This is a price which might seem steep for just a spreadsheet app but, I think, is actually very reasonable when you consider that Microsoft Office for Mac still sells for US$399 for Standard Edition and around US$129 for the Student edition. Even if you were to combine iWork and Tables as an Apple fan’s alternative to MS Office it would only cost you around US$135. I think it’s price makes Tables fairly attractive to people who are sick of the abandonware-like state of Office, and just want to do our casual spreadsheet work without having to fork over $400.

A reasonable price means nothing if the software is no good. Fortunately, using Tables is a pleasant experience, although not without it’s rough spots. I’m not a pro with spreadsheets, but for my fairly average spreadsheet needs, I’ve really enjoyed using Tables. My use of Tables began, coincidentally, the same day my copy of Midnight Apps’ Cha-Ching stopped working (that’s another story), so tables became my make-shift financial app. In-spite of the fact that it had been about a year since I last used a spreadsheet application, I was able to load Tables and have a fairly complete sheet of my finances, with auto calculations of total earnings and expenses, in just a couple minutes. Tables includes all of the features I ever used in Excel like cell functions, charts, cell formatting, and multiple sheets. Charts stands in my memory as causing me particular pain in my early days of Excel use, how about Tables? In Tables just select some data then press the charts icon in the toolbar and you’ve got a chart… it’s that easy.

Mind you, Tables does also impose some limits as a result of it’s simplicity of use. For example, want a rainbow-colored chart? Sadly, you are limited to the seven Color Schemes provided. Still, for the most part I really enjoyed the simplicity of Tables’ interface. When Tables opens you aren’t confronted with a whole lot. The document window is as you’d expect in a spreadsheet app but it’s toolbar contains surprisingly few buttons. Further controls for document, sheet, text, format, style and graphing are contained in handy little inspector windows. What’s more, you can open multiple inspector windows to cater to your spreadsheet needs, a feature I’m very glad Daniel borrowed from the iWork apps.

Another piece of UI polish I enjoyed is the Styles Drawer. The Styles Drawer makes applying cell formatting styles a breeze by letting you store common and favorite styles in a slide out drawer. You simply select a cell that is formated in the desired manner, create a new style in the drawer and apply as you like. I think it’s a really excellent feature. Tables’ interface icons and layout make the entire user experience fairly clear, but I did have a few complaints. Strangely the aforementioned Styles Drawer does not have a corresponding icon in the toolbar. This oversight is two-fold because I think it will prevent potential users from finding this great little feature. My other worry was with some of the inspector controls, a few of them don’t seem to work quite right. Particularly the Graphic / Cell Style inspector just seemed a bit “weird”. The Graphic inspector’s opacity control works with imported graphics but not with data charts. Finally, the Graphic inspector’s “Fill” drop-down menu was never enabled, I’m not entirely sure what, if anything, it does.

Although I have had a few complaints all of them are things that can be added or tweaked in a new release in a week or month, and I’m sure they will be because Daniel Schwill is working on Tables constantly. In fact, several free updates have been released since I began writing this review. Daniel Schwill seems to be a very committed developer who has put a lot of thought into the direction he wants to take Tables. This gives me a lot of confidence in it’s future.

In many ways I feel Tables is about keeping it simple. Obviously there are other spreadsheet options on the Mac but Tables stands out by aiming to make spreadsheet work and organizing your data a very “Mac-like” experience. I know this is a big thing to say, but I consider Tables to be “real competition” for Excel on the Mac. It has a lot to offer; competitive pricing, ease of use, consistent support… Yet the most startling thing I realized while using and reviewing Tables, is that small concerns aside, I really enjoyed working with and organizing my data in a way I never had in Excel or Mariner Calc. Whether you have “had it” with Microsoft and Excel in general, want a more easy to use spreadsheet, or have just never found use for a spreadsheet application before – I suggest you give Tables a try.

Pros:

Cons:

• Opening a new inspector window requires visiting the View menu.
• Spell-checking is absent from the spreadsheet’s cells.
• Toolbar icon for the Styles Drawer is absent.
• Where the heck are the Horizontal and Vertical divider bars?!
• It’s cheaper than buying Office: Mac but still feels a little pricey for casual spreadsheet users.

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