Sheets

Setup Sheet

A new Sheet opens on Setup Sheet, a few quick steps:

1. Start From: a Blank grid, your Plan Cards as rows, Import CSV, or one of twelve templates (below) (its Choose File… goes straight to the file picker, and the Sheet fills from the file). For Plan Cards, the next steps narrow the cards with the same search and filters as the Cards panel, then choose the columns from the fields those cards have (Number, Title, Type and State are always there). The rows stay linked to the cards, both ways:

• Change a card anywhere and its row updates.
• Edit a row and it waits as a draft, tinted, with Save Card (✓, or Add Card on a new row) and Cancel Changes (✕) in its Controls cell at the end of the table. Save Card writes the row to its card; Cancel Changes puts it back.
• Clearing a Title, State or Type cell doesn't clear it on the card: a card always has them, so it keeps its value and the row shows it again.
• Every card row has Open Card at the right of its title.
• Type, State, Priority, Assignee and choice fields have a dropdown arrow in the selected cell to pick from; Due and Start pick a date.
• Type in the row under the table (or a row you insert inside it) and press Add Card to make it a new card.
• Delete a row and its card moves to the Trash, where you can restore it.

1. Style: Header, Banded, Boxed, Minimal or Plain, whether to Freeze Header Row (not for a Blank start), and a Cell Size. A template starts on Banded.

Press Create Sheet, or Start Blank to skip it. Everything can change later from the cog.

Templates

Each template is a finished sheet, filled with example data that shows how it works: a title, a coloured header row, banded rows, totals and a summary, all live formulas, and most with a chart over the cells. Type over the example figures (the soft yellow cells are the ones meant to be typed in) and everything else follows. Start Planning's Spreadsheets shows a picture of each.

The colours are set for the canvas the template is made on (light or dark). A template's chart can be moved, resized or removed like any other.

Move Around a Sheet

Scroll as usual, or drag the cells around: with the middle mouse button, the right button, or the left button while you hold Space. A right-click that doesn't move still opens the menu. On a touch screen, drag with one finger; a tap still selects a cell, and two fingers zoom the canvas.

Named Ranges

Give a cell or a range a name, so a formula reads it by name and keeps reading the same cells however far you fill it: select the cells, type a name such as TaxRate in the name box (left of fx), and press Enter. Then =B2*TaxRate works in any row. Typing a name there later selects its cells. Names start with a letter or _, can't look like a cell reference (AB12), and are listed in Sheet Settings › Named Ranges, where you can go to one or remove it. A formula can also use a name from another sheet on the same tab, as long as only one sheet has it.

Rows and Columns

Right-click a column letter or row number to insert, delete, clear or hide, fit it to its contents, set its exact size with Resize…, or sort by a column. Drag a header's edge to resize it, or drag selected headers to move them. Right-click a cell (or a selection) for the cell menu. Its top names the selection and how many cells it covers, with Cut, Copy, Paste, Paste Values, Clear Contents and Clear Formatting as buttons along it. Below sit its categories, each opening to the side: Insert and Delete (rows, columns, or cells moving their neighbours), Cells (Merge Cells or Unmerge Cells, Hide and Conditional Formatting…), Sort (A to Z, Z to A, Custom Sort…), Paste Special, Data Validation and Chart. Each row inside says exactly what it will do: Insert 3 Rows Above, Delete Rows 2 to 4, Delete Column B. Formulas follow their cells: inserting, deleting, moving or sorting rows never breaks them.

Below the last row, Add puts more rows at the bottom (100 at a time, or the number you type).

Dropdowns and Checkboxes

Under Data in the toolbar (or Data Validation when you right-click cells):

• Dropdown makes the selected cells pick from a list. Its options start as the values already in the cells; give each a colour, drag to reorder, and choose how it shows: Chip (a coloured pill), Arrow or Plain Text. Dropdown (From a Range) takes its options from other cells of the sheet instead. Click a chip or arrow, or press Alt and Down (⌥↓), to pick from the list; typing works too, and done is saved as the option Done.
• Checkbox turns the selected cells into tick boxes. Click a box, or press Space with cells selected, to tick or untick them all. A ticked box is TRUE to formulas, so =COUNTIF(B2:B9,TRUE) counts the ticks.
• Data Validation… opens the full rule: a dropdown, a checkbox, or a number, date or text rule (between two numbers, a date after another, a valid email address, and more). By default a value the rule doesn't allow is refused, and the cell says why; under Advanced you can choose Show a Warning instead (the value is kept, with a small red mark), and add Help Text to show in place of the standard message.

A new rule replaces any rule its cells already had. Remove Validation takes the rule off the selected cells. Every rule is listed in Sheet Settings under Data Validation. Pasted and typed values are checked, as are changes made by AI agents; undo and CSV imports aren't, and any value they bring in that a rule doesn't allow is marked.

Charts

Select some cells, then pick Data in the Sheet's toolbar, open Insert Chart and choose a chart type: Column Chart, Bar Chart, Line Chart, Area Chart, Scatter Chart, Pie Chart or Doughnut Chart (or right-click the cells and open Chart). For a scatter chart, put the numbers for the bottom axis in the first column. Select a single cell to chart the whole table it sits in. To chart columns that are not side by side, hold Ctrl (⌘ on a Mac) and drag each one: pick the labels in A and the amounts in C, and the chart leaves out B.

The first row names the series and the first column labels the bars, slices or points. The chart appears straight away inside the Sheet, beside the cells you charted, and sits over the cells as a spreadsheet's chart does: it scrolls and zooms with them, and shows wherever the Sheet does (on the canvas, maximised, on a Sheet tab or in a Dashboard). It stays live, so changing the cells changes the chart.

Click a chart to select it, drag it to move it, or drag its corner handle to resize it. Press Delete (or use its Delete Chart button) to remove it, and Escape to let it go. With a chart selected, the arrow keys move it (hold Shift for bigger steps) and Alt with the arrow keys resizes it. Each of these is one step for Undo. Copying, duplicating or deleting a Sheet takes its charts with it. Only an Editor can move, resize or delete charts; Participants and Viewers see them. Right-click a chart, or select it and press its Chart Options button (⋯), for its menu: change the chart type, its style, legend and palette there. To edit a chart's data by hand instead, open its Data menu and choose Unlink From Sheet.

Freeze, Sort, Filter and Find

• Freeze keeps the first rows or columns in place while the rest scrolls. You can also drag the thick line on the row or column headers to freeze more or less.
• Sort Sheet A to Z or Sort Sheet Z to A in the toolbar's Sort menu (Sort A to Z and Sort Z to A on a column's header menu) sorts the sheet's rows by a column, keeping frozen header rows in place. Custom Sort… sorts just the selection, by several columns, with Data has a header row.
• Filter puts a button on each header cell: filter by values (a searchable list with counts) or by a condition (contains, greater than, between, date is before, and more). Filtered rows are hidden for everyone.
• Find (Ctrl+F, ⌘F) searches values, and formulas too if you ask, and highlights every match. Find and Replace (Ctrl+H, or ⌘⇧H on a Mac) replaces in what was typed; Replace All is one step to undo.

Maximise

Press Maximise Sheet in the header, before the cog, to fill the canvas with the sheet, toolbar and formula bar included. Restore Sheet or Escape puts it back. Escape first closes Find or ends an edit, so a second Escape restores. On a wide enough screen the header grows to hold the menu, so the sheet starts at the top of the canvas, and its name moves into the menu box at the top left. While it is maximised, or fills its tab, the zoom buttons in the bottom-right corner zoom the sheet's cells instead of the canvas, from 50% to 200%; Fit puts it back to 100%. Maximising is just for you: nobody else's view changes.

Delete a Sheet

Select a Sheet and press Delete (or use the trash button or the right-click menu). If nothing else in the document uses its sheet, you're asked first: Delete removes the Sheet and its cells together. Undo brings both back while the page stays open.

Nothing is asked, and the cells are kept, when:

• another Sheet shows the same sheet, or a copy of it hasn't been opened yet (a duplicated Sheet or tab);
• you Cut the Sheet, so you can paste it back;
• someone else, or an agent, removes it.

Cells nothing uses any more are deleted for good after 30 days.

Together

Everyone on the document sees each change as it is made, and each person's selection is outlined in their colour with their name. Two people typing in different cells never overwrite each other. Sheet changes join the canvas's Undo and Redo.

• Editors do everything on this page.
• Participants can type into cells, pick from dropdowns and tick checkboxes (each checked by the cells' rules), but can't make or change rules, and get no toolbar, no row, column or merge controls and no Sheet Settings; a row or column header menu offers them only Copy.
• Viewers read the Sheet and can't change it.

Keyboard