Being the man behind the mom in the PTA of all of our children,
I create many google documents and share them with the rest of the parents.
With spreadsheets, i am a huge fan of Protected Ranges. Especially I am fond of the combination of Protected Range and Data Validation.
The data validation allows creating cool drop down list, where parents can just pick from the list ( I don't trust them to type correctly).
Range protection let me narrow them to modify only the fields I want them to touch.
(To a matter of fact, I don't trust them AT ALL).
This let me create sheets that are as powerful as forms, and as flexible and cool as spreadsheet can be.
Google Docs spreadsheets have all that!
You can get into this small example table of product (1..10).
the red cells are editable. the area of the products is protected.
pretty cool huh!?
I tried doing the same with the new Office 2013 365 or whatever it's called. I was sure it gonna leave nothing but dust to gdocs.
pkhhh. Current version of 365 doesn't support neither range protection, nor data validation nor conditional formatting. in other words - OFFICE EXCEL 365 is a NON STARTER CRAP.
So, we're back and happy in the good old familiars arms of Google Docs.
So why is it just "almost there"?
well, have a look at the snapshot below (i don't really trust you to have tried the link above...). The protected range appears as a striped no-flight zone area. The striping is disastrous. makes your entire sheet looking terminally ill.
This is configurable, one can change that in its browser, by going to google doc View menu and un-check the Protected Range item... But show me one PTA mom that will un-check this. duh.
GOOGLE - Please make the protected range un-checked by default, or make the protected range marking less annoying (or just non-existent).
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| snapshot of the gdoc i created. note the striped protected range. |
