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Different ways to work with Microsoft Excel files and Google Sheets.
You can:
Edit Excel files in Drive without converting them.
o Open an Excel file from Drive and edit it in Sheets. Any changes you make are saved in
the original Excel format.
o Chrome Browser only.
o Make sure the Office Editing for Docs, Sheets, & Slides extension is not installed:
a. Open Chrome Browser and in the top-right corner, click More>More Tools>
Extensions.
b. If you see the Office Editing for Docs, Sheets, & Slides extension, click Remove.
o In Drive, double-click an Excel file.
o A preview of your file opens.
o At the top, click Open with Google Sheets.
o You can now edit, share, view version history, collaborate in real-time with others, and
more. All changes you make are saved to the original Microsoft Office file.
Import Excel data into Sheets
o If you had worked with Excel Sheets before and would like to use
Google Sheets from now on, you can upload your Excel sheets by
using File>Import function.
o You can also simply copy block of cells in Excel and directly paste into
Google Sheets.
Convert Sheets files to Excel or other formats.
o You need to collaborate or simultaneously edit with your team.
o Your dataset is 5 million cells or fewer.
o Instead of importing data, you can convert an Excel file to Sheets and keep working on it
in Sheets. Your Excel file won’t be changed.
o Open Drive and double-click an Excel file.
o A preview of your file opens. Right-click on it and use Open with>Google Sheets.
(You may or may not see at the top, click Open with Google Sheets; if you do you can
click on it too.)
o Click File Save as Google Sheets.
o To automatically convert all future uploads of Office files to Google Sheets:
a. In Drive, at the top, click > Settings.
b. Next to Convert uploads, turn on Convert uploaded files to Google Docs editor
format.
c. Note that previously uploaded files will not be converted.
d. In Drive, you’ll see the Excel file and the new Sheets file. You can keep the Excel
file or delete it. If you keep the Excel file, to avoid confusion, you can rename it to
something like [Archived] My doc.xls.
Tip: Use these icons to quickly differentiate Sheets and Excel files in your Drive.