What works

Last updated: October 27, 2026 · Spark Grid 1.1

You have a workbook already. Here is what Spark Grid does with it, and what it doesn’t do yet.

Files

.xlsx opens and saves. So does CSV.
New, Open, Save, Save As, and recent files. Autosave writes a file you have already saved.
Open from the Open dialog, or drop a file on the app icon.
Several sheets: add, rename, delete, and switch. Tabs keep the file’s order.
Defined names in an Excel file are read. Names you create are saved.
Column widths and row heights come back the same after you save and reopen.
Formulas Excel saved as blank stay blank, instead of showing 0.

A formula cell shows its result. The formula stays in the formula bar. These 52 functions calculate:

Math: SUM, AVERAGE, COUNT, COUNTA, COUNTBLANK, MIN, MAX, ABS, ROUND, ROUNDUP, ROUNDDOWN, SUMPRODUCT
Conditional totals: SUMIF, SUMIFS, COUNTIF, COUNTIFS, AVERAGEIF, AVERAGEIFS. Criteria can use wildcards.
Logic: IF, IFS, IFERROR, IFNA, AND, OR, NOT, TRUE
Lookup: XLOOKUP, VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, INDEX, MATCH, XMATCH, COLUMN
Text: CONCAT, CONCATENATE, TEXTJOIN, TEXT, LEFT, RIGHT, MID, LEN, TRIM, UPPER, LOWER, SUBSTITUTE, CHAR
Dates: DATE, YEAR, MONTH, DAY, TODAY, NOW

Any other function shows #NAME?. Missing a function you use? Tell Sam which one.

Fonts, colors, borders, and alignment.
Number formats keep the file’s format code: thousands separators, the currency symbol, and the date and time pattern.
Conditional formatting: highlights, color scales, data bars, and three icon sets.
Merged cells. Titles draw across the merge at full size.
Freeze panes. Frozen rows and columns stay put when you scroll.

Selection, fill handle, zoom, and resizing rows and columns.
Filter by a checklist of values, sort one column, and find and replace on the current sheet.
Pictures you can move and resize.
Bar, line, and area charts on the sheet, with series color, point colors, title, legend, axis titles, and gridlines.
Print preview for the selection, the used range, the sheet, or the workbook.

Large files open fast. A 48,000-formula workbook went from about 15 seconds to about half a second in 1.1.
An edit on the sheet you’re looking at shows up near-instantly. Other sheets catch up in the background.
Saving doesn’t freeze the window. Switching sheets is immediate.
Scrolling back to a page you’ve seen is instant. The first visit to a far part of a very large sheet can still hitch.

Spark Grid is not Excel or Numbers. No pivot tables, data-validation lists, comments, or live collaboration.
No pie or scatter charts, and no charts with more than one series.
The fill handle copies. It doesn’t continue 1, 2, 3 or a run of dates.
The column menu doesn’t sort, and doesn’t filter by greater than, less than, or text contains.
The name box shows the address. It doesn’t take an address or a name. No F2 to edit, and no ⌘-arrow to the edge of the data.
Pressing Space in Finder doesn’t preview a workbook in Spark Grid.

Found in testing on 1.1. All three are fixed for the next update.

ROUND on an exact half cent. Excel rounds 1463.095 to 1463.10. Spark Grid 1.1 can give 1463.09. Totals built on those cells can be a cent off.
Newer functions saved by Excel. Excel stores XLOOKUP, XMATCH, IFS, TEXTJOIN, and CONCAT in the file with a hidden prefix. Spark Grid 1.1 shows those cells blank. Typed into Spark Grid, they work.
INDEX across one row. INDEX(B1:M1, 10) should give the tenth cell. Spark Grid 1.1 shows #REF!. Until the update, INDEX(B1:M1, 1, 10) works.

No account. No analytics. The app doesn’t use the network, and your files stay on your Mac. See the privacy policy.

Email a sample workbook with anything private removed, and say what you expected. help@sparkgridapp.com