Sheets

Sheets is the spreadsheet app, at sheets.cactive.com.au. What it shares with Documents and Slides (files in Drive, editing together, comments, version history, templates, sharing) is on Documents, Sheets and Slides; this page is about spreadsheets.

Cells

Click a cell and type to replace what's in it, or double-click (or press Enter or F2) to change it. Enter finishes and moves down, Tab moves right, Escape cancels. Alt+Enter starts a new line in the cell.

What you type is read the way you'd expect: 1,200 is a number, 12% a percentage, $4.50 money, 2026-10-10 or 10/10/2026 a date (day first), 9:30 am a time, TRUE a logical. Start with ' to keep anything as text ('0042).

Drag the small square at the corner of a selection (the fill handle) to continue it: numbers in a steady step continue the step, dates go a day at a time, "Week 1" counts on, month and day names and quarters go round, and formulas move their references. Copying to another app gives tab-separated text; pasting from one reads each value as if typed.

The status at the bottom right shows the sum of the selected numbers; click it for the average, minimum, maximum or count.

Formulas

Start with =. Sheets has about 470 functions, the ones Excel has (maths, statistics, text, dates, lookups including XLOOKUP and INDEX/MATCH, financial, engineering, information) plus dynamic arrays, LET and LAMBDA. As you type, functions are suggested (Tab or Enter picks one) and the function you're in shows its arguments. Insert → Function and the Σ button start the common ones; Σ on a column of numbers adds a total under it.

References are coloured in the formula and around their cells. While a formula is waiting for a reference (after (, a comma or an operator), click or drag over cells, or use the arrow keys, to put one in; click a sheet tab first to point at another sheet. References to other sheets look like Summary!B2 ('Q3 plan'!B2 when the name has spaces). $ keeps a column or row fixed when the formula is copied: $A$1, A$1, $A1.

Name a range (Data → Named ranges, or type a name in the box left of the formula bar) and use it in formulas: =SUM(Revenue). The name box also goes to any cell, range or named range you type.

Functions that return several values, such as FILTER, SORT, UNIQUE and SEQUENCE, spill into the cells below and to the right; A3# refers to everything spilling from A3. If something is in the way the formula shows #SPILL! until those cells are cleared.

Formulas that can't be worked out show an error with a red corner; point at the cell to see why:

Formulas are worked out in the background, so typing never waits on them, and only what a change affects is worked out again. When a formula is over money or formatted numbers it takes their format.

Rows, columns and sheets

Right-click row numbers or column letters to insert, delete, hide, resize or fit them to their contents; drag the line between two headers to resize, double-click it to fit. Deleting the first or last row of a range a formula uses shrinks the range instead of breaking it, as in Excel. View → Freeze keeps rows or columns in place while the rest scrolls.

The tabs at the bottom are the sheets: + adds one, double-click renames, drag reorders, and right-click gives colour, duplicate, hide and delete. The list button shows every sheet, hidden ones too.

Formatting

The toolbar and Format menu have number formats (currency, percent, decimal places, dates, times and more under 123, including custom format codes), fonts and sizes, bold, italic, underline and strikethrough, text and fill colours, borders, merging, alignment, wrapping and rotation. Paint format copies the selected cell's formatting to the next cells you select. Format → Clear formatting removes it.

Conditional formatting

Format → Conditional formatting colours cells by their values. A rule applies to a range and is one of:

• Single colour: a style when a condition holds (empty, contains text, greater than, between, top 10, above average, duplicates, a date, or a custom formula such as =$I2="Overdue", written for the range's first cell and moved for each cell like a copied formula).
• Colour scale: a fill from one colour to another (or through a middle colour) by value.
• Data bars: a bar in each cell, its length by value.

Earlier rules win where they overlap; reorder them in the list.

Data

• Sort: Data → Sort sheet sorts by the active column (whole rows move, with their formulas); Sort range sorts the selection by one or more columns, with or without a header row.
• Filters: Data → Create a filter (or the filter button) adds a filter to the data around the selection. Each header gets a button for sorting, filtering by condition, and choosing the values to show. The filter is shared with everyone in the file.
• Filter views: Data → Filter views → Create new filter view filters just for you, without changing what others see. Name and reopen views from the same menu.
• Data validation: dropdowns (a list of choices, each with an optional colour, or the values of a range), checkboxes, numbers, dates, text, lengths or a custom formula. Other input is flagged with a red corner, or refused. Insert → Checkbox and Insert → Dropdown are shortcuts.
• Clean-up: trim extra spaces, remove duplicate rows, and split text into columns.

Charts

Select data with a header row and Insert → Chart. The chart editor sets the type (column, bar, stacked, line, area, pie, donut or scatter), the data range, whether series run down columns or across rows, the title, the legend, axis titles and colours. Charts update as the data changes. Drag a chart to move it and its corner to resize it.

Pivot tables

Select data with a header row and Insert → Pivot table. It goes on a new sheet with its editor open: choose fields for rows and columns, values with how each is summarised (sum, count, average, minimum or maximum), and filters. The table updates as the source data changes, and formulas can refer to its cells.

Comments and notes

Insert → Comment (or right-click) starts a discussion on a cell; cells with open comments have an amber corner. A note (Insert → Note) is a plain remark that shows when the cell is hovered. Links (Insert → Link, Ctrl+K) open from the cell's card.

Version history

File → Version history shows earlier versions. Opening one shows it read-only with the cells that differ from now tinted; restore it or make a copy from there.

Importing, downloading and printing

• File → Import reads a CSV or TSV file into a new sheet, the current sheet, after its rows, or at the selected cell. In Drive, Open in Sheets makes a spreadsheet from a CSV or TSV file (Excel files are coming).
• File → Download gives the current sheet as CSV or TSV, with the formulas' results; Excel and PDF downloads are coming.
• File → Print prints the current sheet, the selection or every sheet, on A4, A3, Letter or Legal, portrait or landscape, at actual size or fitted to the width or the page, with or without gridlines. Frozen rows repeat at the top of each page.

Writing help

The spark button in the header opens Caity: describe a formula and insert it, have one explained, fill a column from a few examples, or get a chart suggested for your data.

On a phone

Sheets opens in the phone's browser: scroll with a finger, tap a cell to select it and tap it again to edit, and use the menus for everything else.