Ratio vs a spreadsheet
Written on by Adrian Viziteu.
Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets are great for tables. Most everyday sums aren't tables, though: a trip budget, a quote with VAT, a price in another currency. For those, typing a few lines in Ratio is quicker than laying out cells.
| Ratio | Spreadsheet | |
|---|---|---|
| Getting started | Type a line, the answer appears | Pick cells, write formulas, format |
| Labels and notes | Write them on the same line as the number | A separate column |
| Currencies | Live, “84 eur in usd” | Functions or add-ons, varies by app |
| Units, dates, time zones | Built in, in words | Formulas |
| Loans and investments | Same pmt, fv, pv, npv, irr | Yes |
| Thousands of rows, pivots, charts | No | Yes |
| Editing together in real time | No (share as an image or link) | Yes |
A budget in five lines
Labels are skipped, sum adds up the block above it, and currencies are converted for you.
| Flights 420 eur | €420 |
| Hotel 3 * 95 eur | €285 |
| Rail pass 120 usd | $120 |
| sum in eur | €811.96 |
| prev / 2 | €405.98 |
The spreadsheet functions you already know
| pmt(5%/12, 360, 200000) | 1,073.64 |
| npv(10%, 100, 200, 300) | 481.59 |
| irr(-1000, 300, 400, 500) | 8.9% |
| mean(12, 15, 19, 22) | 17 |
| round(2.675, 2) | 2.68 |
Use Ratio when
The calculation fits on one screen and you want the answer now: quotes, invoices, splitting a bill, converting a price, checking a loan.
Use a spreadsheet when
You have rows of records, need charts or pivot tables, or several people edit the same file. Ratio can hand results over: cat sheet.txt | ratio --csv prints line,result rows you can paste into a spreadsheet.
Try Ratio free for 7 days · $9.99 once, updates included
Questions
Can Ratio replace Excel? Not for large tables, charts or shared workbooks. For quick sums, budgets and conversions it is faster, because you just type.
Does Ratio understand Excel functions? The finance ones, yes: pmt, fv, pv, npv and irr take the same arguments. sum, mean, median and round work too.