Eric Sandbo, Business Owner
I use EditGrid to keep a list of supplies sold for most of the copiers, printers, faxes and cash registers we have sold or maintained over the past few decades. EditGrid makes the latest version of our 7500-cell sheet available instantly at either of our two stores, or on the road.
My supplies spreadsheet is open to the public, but we don’t advertise its existence (until now). It’s used as a convenience by store personnel. We can find what our customer needs quickly without digging through stacks of books and manufacturer websites. EditGrid makes maintaining and using the list easy in several ways:
- We can access it or update it from anywhere we can go online. I started the project at work, but sometimes sometimes update it from home. I don’t need to carry the sheet in a flash drive or email it to myself; it’s just there when I need it. When I’m updating, I don’t have to stop myself and ask which version is my most recent.
- EditGrid allows me to freeze the top row and the left columns. The sheet is over 400 lines long and a few screens wide, but no matter where I scroll on it, the machine model is always visible on the left, and the type of supply is always visible across the top. That’s a common feature on the major Office applications, but it’s unusual in the web-based sheets. Without, my Supplies sheet would be worthless, past the first 20 or so models.
- It’s easy to upload or download the whole sheet, if needed. EditGrid is convenient for making a few changes directly in the web-based sheet, but there’s bound to be a delay working over the Net. When I have the time to add a big batch of models, I’ll download it in OpenOffice format (or Excel), add a few dozen lines, and upload it back to EditGrid when I’m done. Other web-based sheets claim this capability, but only seem to work with small files. I signed up with Google Docs and Sheets and tried to upload my supplies sheet. Google would show a dialog saying it’s uploading, but when it finished, no file would be there. I tried it using both Excel and OpenOffice formats, uploading both directly and via email. Nothing worked.
- Searching is easy. Like most spreadsheet apps, I can search for a model or supply by clicking the binoculars symbol or touching Ctrl-F. On some of the web-based apps, though, Ctrl-F brings up the browser’s search function. Somehow EditGrid intercepts it before the browser gets to it and gives me the search I need. It’s fast, too. I can enter a partial model number and get to the info I need in a few seconds, even if I have to click the Next button a few times to get past other similar entries.
- EditGrid is platform-independent. I’ve worked with it in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari, and on Windows, Linux and OSX. It seems immune to differences in browsers and operating systems. One of the other web-based spreadsheet apps I tried worked great in Firefox but took several minutes to load in InternetExplorer. As much as I like Firefox, I can’t use a sheet that doesn’t work with the browser that most people consider synonymous with the Internet.
