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I'm looking for a free spreadsheet editor that is simple and lightweight. I don't want to install OpenOffice just to use a some spreadsheets every once in a while.

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Do you need to be able to edit the spreadsheets or just read them? – segiddins Oct 3 '12 at 23:34
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More difficult than one might think. From time to time I am also searching for a good spreadsheet program on OS X, but I haven't really found anything I could recommend. Here is a (very short) list of free spreadsheet apps for OSX. But going for Google Docs may be the best choice right now. – iolsmit Oct 3 '12 at 23:36
wow, that is surprising. I'm using Gdocs already but every once in a while I need a standalone app, for example gdocs couldn't deal with one XLS that I had uploaded. – MotoTribe Oct 4 '12 at 0:04
If you don't mind compiling it yourself, you could try Gnumeric via e.g. Homebrew - but compilation/installation is for sure not lightweight, as you need to compile gtk+ and numerous other dependencies. But OS X integration is not much better than running the Windows binary in Wine... – iolsmit Oct 4 '12 at 0:27

4 Answers

up vote 9 down vote accepted

If Chrome isn't too heavy for you Google Docs has very capable spreadsheet facilities that improve all the time. You can even run it offline if you're going to be away from an internet connection.

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up vote 4 down vote

I haven't used it, but pyspread looks promising:

Pyspread is a non-traditional spreadsheet application that is based on and written in the programming language Python.

The goal of pyspread is to be the most pythonic spreadsheet.

Pyspread expects Python expressions in its grid cells, which makes a spreadsheet specific language obsolete. Each cell returns a Python object that can be accessed from other cells. These objects can represent anything including lists or matrices.

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up vote 1 down vote

There is gnumeric which is Gnomes's spreadsheet. It seems quick and lite. However it is designed for GNOME, one of the Unix desktops and does not look OSX like (note this is even using Cocoa GTK not X11)

Also you need to install on OSX from source. I used macports sudo port install gnumeric which for Snow Leopard and Lion will install binaries. I suspect fink or homebrew will provide gnumeric as well.

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up vote 4 down vote

If you just need to view an Excel spreadsheet (.xls or .xlsx extension), you may be surprised to learn that Preview in Mountain Lion (and Lion, possibly?) can open and display them quite competently. You won't be able to edit anything, and I'm sure there may be problems with more advanced functions and macros and such, but if you just want to quickly view or print a spreadsheet, it may do the job.

Numbers, part of Apple's iWork suite, is neither free nor lightweight. But at US$20, it's quite affordable, particularly in proportion to the functionality it provides, and it certainly feels more lightweight than Open/LibreOffice.

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