Microsoft Excel is a Windows based program and hence not supported on Chromebooks. However, it is still possible to use Microsoft Excel on a Chromebook using applications that are readily available on Google’s Chrome Web Store.
Microsoft Excel on Chromebook
While there are many application that will allow you to work on Microsoft Excel files, we are limiting this post to some of the better ones.
Google Sheets
Google Sheets app allows you to open, view and edit Microsoft Excel files directly on a Chromebook. The application saves your edited Excel files to Google Drive.
You can download Google Sheet App from Chrome Web Store and start working on Excel files.
Google Sheets allows you to use most Excel functions including Pivot Tables. However, advanced Excel users wanting to use VBA commands will be disappointed; VBA commands do not work on Google Sheets.
A great feature of Google Sheets is its Collaboration tool that makes it really easy for multiple people to work on the same file at the same time. This will come as a great news for those who may have tried to use the painful document sharing feature in Microsoft Excel.
Google Sheets works a lot better in a shared environment compared to Microsoft Excel and it also allows you to easily pull live data into the spreadsheet (like live currency conversion data).
Microsoft Excel Online
If you are still particular about using Microsoft Excel in its purest form, you can make use of the online web version of Microsoft Excel made available for all browsers by Microsoft.
All that you need to do is head over to My Office on office.com, sign in with your Microsoft account and start using the online version of Microsoft Office.
Using this application you can create new Excel documents and export them. However, opening existing documents requires you to first upload the document to Microsoft’s Skydrive account and open it from there.
Microsoft Excel Online is quite similar to the desktop version of Excel, and can be used from any browser, including Google Chrome.
Unlike the Desktop version, you will need an Outlook account to use Excel Online and all your files will be saved to your OneDrive account instead of Desktop.
You can install Microsoft Excel Online from the Chrome Web Store to your Chromebook and start working on your Excel spreadsheets, just like working on regular Windows Excel Program.
rollApp
rollApp, allows you to open Excel files on your computer from Dropbox or Google Drive account, just like regular files.
Similar to Google Spreadsheets, roll app makes it possible to use most commonly used Excel functions.