It is no secret that Microsoft Excel is more powerful and complex than Google Sheets and is often a favorite program for sophisticated calculations and large datasets. However, the Google sheet provides many advantages that are often ignored and can swing the balance to their side.
5
Receive detailed help while typing the formula
Google sheet And Microsoft Excel Want to help you when you are typing the formula. Actually, as soon as you type the opening brackets, both shows pop-up tips with syntax of program function.
However, in the Google sheet, if you click on the arrow down to the right of the pop-up, you can see more information about the function you are using.
In particular, you are given an example of a full formula for the function in the question. This is especially useful – if me – you often forget that some arguments need to be structured in some ways, such as wrapped in quotation marks. You are also presented with a detailed description of what the function does and what each argument in the formula represents. If you are still struggling with the formula, scroll under the pop-up, and click on a support page link.
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This additional information is a game-shineer if you are using a function that you have never used before or require many arguments.
4
Convention your link to other files
Both Google Sheets and Microsoft EXCEL let you put links to other files in the same program. For example, in the sheet, you can copy the URL of the Google sheet file, which you want to link, and paste it into the cell in the active file. Similarly, in Excel, you can right-click on a cell, select “links” and generate hyperlinks in an existing Excel file.
As you can see in both screenshots above, the links are long and rejected.
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To avoid this in Microsoft Excel, instead of pasting the link directly into a cell, you can first type some lessons and then add the text to the relevant Excel file.
However, this process can be time consuming, especially if you need to link to several files at the same time. What is more, it can be disappointingly challenging to choose and format the linked cell without triggering the link, as as soon as you put it, the link becomes activated.
On the other hand, in Google Sheets, when you choose a cell with another sheet file, you are given the option to replace the URL with chip.
When you activate this option, the URL turns into a specially formatted button, in which the file name is automatically inserted.
The biggest advantage of using link chips in Google sheet is that if you accidentally click them, you are not immediately taken into the linked file. Instead, you see a pop-up that lets you confirm your desire to leave an active worksheet and navigate on one.
This means that you can easily select and format the link with links, where you click, be highly careful about it.
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3
See table name in the cell field
Prior to 2024, the formatted tables were available only in the Microsoft Excel, but Google realized its profit and decided to implement them in their own spreadsheet software.
There are many reasons that you can convert your data to formatted tables, including the capacity of table and column names in formulas. For example, typing:
=SUM(Player_Scores(Score))
In both sheets, the score of an empty cell and the score of the Excel player score table returns to the total of all values in the column, which makes you manually refer to the data range.
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However, instead of mimicking the table design of Microsoft only, the Google table naming a step forward in the process.
To change the name of a table in the Microsoft Excel, you need to select a cell in the table, go to the “Table Design” tab, and change the text in the table name field of the Group. Given how useful tables are there, it is surprising that you have to dig greatly through the ribbon to change their name.
On the other hand, in Google sheet, the name of the table appears in the worksheet area, directly above the table. Therefore, as soon as you make the table, you are reminded to name it, and doing so is only one second.
As a result, when you go to refer to a table in a formula in Google sheet, you only have to look at the table – instead of the root through the menu on the ribbon – to remind yourself of your name, thus saving a lot of time.
To see the list of all tables and designated range in the Google Sheet or Microsoft Excel file, click on Down Aero in the name box, which is located in the top-left corner of the spreadsheet window (just above the row titles).
2
Know which cells have a drop-down list
Adding drop-down lists into cells-something that you can click on data verification in both Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel-clicking data verification-improves denta entry improvement, prevents typos, and ensures stability.
In the Microsoft Excel, cells with drop-down data verification rules look like “normal” cells until they are clicked. In other words, there is no way to know that you can choose a value from a drop-down list until you choose the affected cells.
On the other hand, cells in a Google sheet with drop-down lists adopt a styled format that looks professional and make it clear that cells can be clicked to reveal input options.
What is more, when data verification stating input options, you can assign colored chips. To do the same in Microsoft Excel, you have to take additional steps to add conditional formatting rules.
1
Notify if some cell values change
So far, I have discussed how to share some features of Google Sheets with Microsoft Excel are more user friendly. However, in this last section, I show you a special tool for conditional information.
At the time of writing (July 2025), conditional notifications in Google Sheets are available only to people using business, enterprise or education Google work area. This is because this tool means for a shared worksheet in the collaborative environment.
Imagine that you are a project manager, and you are monitoring the progress of various tasks in your organization. The status column tells you whether any work is in progress, is completed, or a certain action is required to continue it.
So you can keep an eye on the development of each task, you can set a conditional notification rules that email you if a work situation changes. To do the same in Microsoft Excel, you have to know how to write VBA code – too much more complex skills.
First, in Google Sheets, right-click on any cell in the range, and select “conditional notifications”.
Then, in the add rule pane, name the rule, select the table, range, or cell, type gmail or workspace email address (up to 10) which should be notified when the data is changed, and click “Save”.
You can also add additional conditions – such as only informing you if the cell value changes into a specific term – by clicking “Add the position”.
Now, when the value changes in one of the enrolled cells, an email notification will be sent to the specified address. Notification includes which cell has changed, what has changed and the name of the person who has changed.
The notification may take up to 30 minutes to arrive. If more than one changes are made in a short time, information can be classified into a single email.
In this case, because the situation has changed action requiredI need to email the person who made changes to discuss how we can enable to continue the work.
If you are still on the fence when you are on the fence while deciding to use Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel, take some time to compare your data analysis and visualization capabilities, ease in cooperation, complexity of those tools, and comparison programs in terms of their overall performance.
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