Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

Data Analysis Spreadsheet Basics Getting Started With Spreadsheets Calculating Totals With SUM

codyl
codyl
4,704 Points
Posted by codyl
codyl
4,704 Points

If Excel is the most commonly used spreadsheet app -- why are lessons in google docs?

I actually know both quite well, so I'm using going though this lesson to see what other non-spreadsheet lessons there might be. However, as stated in the very first video, Excel is the most common spreadsheet -- especially that you might find in a business environment. So given the purpose of these classes, I'm wondering why you picked lessons using google docs? Might as well used LIbreOffice for Linux

2 Answers

codyl
codyl
4,704 Points
codyl
codyl
4,704 Points

FYI I wrote this before I knew that later on, when Treehouse started discussing more advanced spreedsheet topics, that the videos / examples switch to Excel.

I think it's actually good that Treehouse used Sheets. Gave people the knowledge that for basic stuff, you can use Sheets. But then also used Excel later, so that people that want more advanced functions could still learn a few things. Well done

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,268 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,268 Points

This was explained about 16 seconds into the Choosing Spreadsheet Software video:

In this course, we're gonna use Google Sheet software. It's free, has all the functionality you will need, and looks and works the same across different types of computer systems.

codyl
codyl
4,704 Points
codyl
codyl
4,704 Points

Yeah, that doesn't answer my question.

But after the few courses on the basics of spreadsheets, they did switch to excel. Which was good. As I use Excel all the time and my goal was to learn some more advanced spreadsheet functions. So when the courses started out with Google Sheets (after admitting that Excel was more common in business and more fully featured), I got a bit worried that these courses wouldn't teach me anything new

Now that I've completed the series, I'll add a comment to indicate that I now know Excel is taught later on when we switch to more advanced functions and that I wrote my question early.

Thanks