Guides

Five things people actually want to do with a pile of numbers, and how to do each one.

• Turn a photo of a receipt or a list into a tablePhotograph a receipt, a stock list or a page of handwriting and get a table you can total, chart and correct. What the reading gets right, and what it does not.
• Share a chart without sharing the spreadsheetSend the chart and the conclusion while the rows stay private: salaries, client lists, margins. How to do it, and what a reader can and cannot reach.
• Make a chart from a Google Sheet that updatesLink a Google Sheet, then press Refresh for this week's rows: every chart, total and sentence recalculates. What refreshes, and what does not.
• Ask questions of your data without writing formulasType “which products lose money?” and get the answer as a chart, with the calculation it ran and the rows it read. How to ask well, and how to check the answer.
• Write a report where the numbers update themselvesPut a total inside a sentence and it recalculates when the data changes, so the prose is never out of date. How live numbers work and where they come from.
• Turn a CSV export into a report someone will readEvery tool exports a CSV and none of them export a conclusion. How to go from an export to a chart, a sentence and a link, in a few minutes.
• Keep a weekly report that does not go staleThe work is not making the report; it is making it again every week. How to set one up so the next edition is a refresh, not a rewrite.
• Spreadsheet or document: where should the numbers live?When a spreadsheet is the right tool, when a document is, and the honest trade-offs. Written by the people who make one of them.