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Become successful with Excel

If you want to be successful in life, you need to know how to work with numbers. When you are good with numbers, you know how to take control of your finances and make wise decisions with money. If you are not comfortable with handling numbers, there are many software programs to help you interpret numbers efficiently. One of the most popular is Microsoft Excel. Microsoft Excel is a powerful data visualization and analysis tool. Many professionals use Excel because it is easily transferable to other file formats, if you need to send data to another person it can be converted from Excel to PDF. But before we dive deeper into that, why don’t we cover the basics first and work our way up?

What is Microsoft Excel?

Excel is a popular electronic spreadsheet program that stores, organizes, and manipulates data. Excel is made up of spreadsheets, electronic documents in which data is arranged in horizontal rows and vertical columns.

Who Uses Spreadsheets?

Maybe the question should be who does not use spreadsheets! The use of spreadsheets is widespread in many industries. Accountants use spreadsheets to keep track of important financial information, infact, it is one of the most important tools for an accountant. If you work in a company that operates within a specific budget, your accounting department probably uses spreadsheets to manage your organization’s expenses.

In the world of spreadsheet programs, Microsoft Excel remains top of mind. You cannot beat the popularity of Excel, but it is not without its flaws. It’s got a couple of problems, and chief of them all is its exorbitant price. A copy of the software will cost you $129.99, and if you prefer to use it along with the other programs of Microsoft Office, it costs around $69.99 a year.

Thankfully, there are other spreadsheet software programs in the market, each with their own significant features. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

Microsoft Excel Alternatives

1. Google Sheets

Google Sheets is a free-to-use online service by Google which lets you create, edit and collaborate with others through spreadsheets.

You can do a lot of things with it- create new spreadsheets, edit existing files, format cells, enter or sort data, insert charts etc. Another cool feature is how everything is saved automatically in the spreadsheet you are working on as you type. No need to touch that save button!

Price: Professional Office Suite starts at $4.20 per user per month, and Business Plan starts at $10.20 per user per month.

Cons: Slow and has less functions than Excel.

2. Zoho Sheet

Zoho Sheet is a spreadsheet application that provides you the space for organizing data, analyzing data, and discussing reports with your team.

One of its sought-after features is a smart data cleaning tool which quickly removes data duplicates, inconsistencies, and missing values.

Price: Free, Business Plan starts at $8

Cons: Too many tabs and options are confusing to users.

3. LibreOffice Calc

LibreOffice Calc is the spreadsheet component of the LibreOffice software package. It calculates, analyzes and manages data, and imports Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

The app allows users to import data in various formats through a special Data Pilot feature. Other cool features include a Natural Language Formulas tool where users can use normal words to make commands, and a handy Intelligent Sum button that automatically inserts the sum function.

Price: Free, and runs virtually on any operating system available - Android, iOS, etc.

Cons: Formatting features are harder to use than Excel features.

4. Quip

Quip is a collaborative productivity software suite that allows groups of people to edit and create documents and spreadsheets primarily for business purposes Some of the popular features are the keyboard shortcuts and the mentions and images in cells. As the name suggests, you can mention people within any spreadsheet cell, and insert images in cells.

Price: $10 to $25 a month

Cons: Heavily internet-reliant; to get a free demo you need a business email.

As you can see, based on the description of each program, other spreadsheet applications are either too Internet-reliant or not as sophisticated as Microsoft Excel. If buying your own Microsoft Excel software is too inconvenient for you, and you do not want to install another editor to read Excel files because maintaining software is expensive and eats up hardware memory very fast, is there anything left for you to do?

How To Convert Spreadsheet Into PDF Format

Well, what if we told you that there’s a site that can read and view Excel files without downloading any software? On PDFBear, you can do a lot more - it works as an online file converter and can convert a XLS file to PDF format, PDF to XLS format, and PDF to Excel.

When you use PDFBear, turning many Excel files into PDF can be done quickly and by bulk. PDFBear’s PRO members, users that avail of PDF Bear’s special membership, are able to convert as much as 20files at a time!

This is a faster and more convenient way of turning an Excel to PDF. Doing it manually would be a tiresome job for anyone.We explain further in the steps below:

1. Open Microsoft Excel. Go to your target spreadsheet and select the part of the spreadsheet you want to convert to PDF.

2. Click on the File tab. If you are using an older version of Excel, click on the File menu.

3. Click on Export. If you are using Microsoft Excel 2010 or an earlier version, choose "Save As" instead.

4. Click Create PDF/XPS. If you are using an earlier version, select PDF from the Save As Type drop-down menu.

5. Click the Options to adjust the settings of the PDF file you will create.

6. Choose what gets included in your new PDF. You can pick the range of pages included, whether the PDF includes your selection, the whole workbook, or just the active Excel spreadsheet. You can also choose if it will include the original document’s properties.

7. Choose your optimization. Above the options button, pick how you want to optimize your PDF. Most people go with Standard, unless your spreadsheet is really big.

8. Name your file, save it, and click the publish button to create the PDF. Remember to save if you’re using a 2010 version or earlier!

9. Review your PDF. The PDF will automatically open on its own as it is created. When it does, review it.

The process has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. The one big drawback to this type of process is not being able to see thePDF you created if you don’t have a PDF Reader installed in your device. Secondly, the original formatting is lost in the converted file.

However if you were to use PDFBear’s Excel to PDF Converter tool, the end product of your PDF will be an exact version of your Excel file. Plus, PDF comes with a built-in PDF Reader that lets you view your brand new PDF file anytime you want.

And it only takes four quick steps to get the job done. We break it down for you here:

1. Upload the spreadsheet you want to convert.

2. Choose from the list of options available.

3. Click Convert. Wait for the conversion process to finish.

4. Download the converted PDF file to your device.

Yes, it’s that easy! PDFBear’s Excel to PDF tool is highly flexible as well, it supports the standard XLS format, but will support an XLS to PDF conversion. Both file extensions take the same amount of time and speed to convert.

How To Convert PDF Into A Spreadsheet

It happens to the best of us - you’re at work and you need to send an urgent report to your boss. Unfortunately, you saw a few miscalculations in your report, and you need to fix them immediately, so you quickly convert your PDF to a spreadsheet. Thisis what you would probably do: