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Comment by mewpmewp2 | Hacker News Reader

As a lay-person, what would you use for non numbers tabular data?

People love to use Excel to look at (with their eyes, or a screen reader, i.e., non programmatically) all kinds of data. They use it to list exports from data stores, and then take notes on what they discovered, show and hide data using the filter option, etc. It is just far too easy to use (and misuse) that it ends up being used for any type of data that fits into a table.

I mean I thought you said that they should not use excel for these scenarios, but something else. So I thought you had an alternative software in mind?

I use Splunk (our organization pays lots of money for it, and yet it just sits there because people would rather use Excel). There is also Tableau and other products like it. Most of these tools have a free version, as well. They take some learning, but it is well worth it. Of course, taking that same amount of time to actually learn how Excel works is worth the time, too. I guess the issue is that Excel is just too "easy" to use, and hence people using it for years and years and not actually knowing how to use it.

I am not trying to be an elitist about this. It is just that the misuse of Excel (because people do not know how to use it) causes massive issues on a daily basis.

Excel have lots of different uses. It can be used as inventory tracking, sales, catalog, mileages, contact list, and the list goes on. It is useful in many different fields and industries.

You have to remember, Excel is extremely powerful beast. It have many specialized features that will handle any data it encountered with. I used Excel for 15 years and I am still finding features that made the process quicker. Of course, Excel have its limits and I am well aware of that.

I haven't used it much myself, but I think Access is meant to answer this question.

Excel is fine, but keep the data as xls and you won't have problems like dropping leading zeros. As soon as you convert to a simpler file format like cvs, you will likely lose data unless you are very careful in both export and import.

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