Sheets is Google’s answer to Excel and Numbers that you can use on your Chromebook. If you’ve had any experience working with Excel or Numbers, you’ll find the Sheets interface quite similar. If this is your first time using a spreadsheet tool, you’ll find that Sheets is extremely intuitive.
To get started, launch Google Sheets by opening the App Launcher and clicking the Sheets icon. The Sheets application will open in a Chrome browser window and create a new, untitled spreadsheet.
Customize your view
Before you dive into your first spreadsheet, you might find it helpful to change your view in Google Sheets. You can compact the Applications menu by opening View in the Applications menu and choosing Compact Controls. When you compact the Applications menu, the applications menu is crunched down to create more space.
To restore the full Applications menu, just open the View menu and choose Compact Controls again.
You can also compact the Applications menu by using the keyboard shortcut Shift+Ctrl+F. You can use this shortcut to either hide or reveal the Applications menu.
If you prefer to hide the Applications menu completely, along with the Edit toolbar, you can do so by opening the View menu and choosing Full Screen. When you select Full Screen, the Applications menu and Edit toolbar vanish.
To exit Full Screen mode, simply press the Esc key.
If you prefer to have nothing but cells on your screen, you can remove the Applications menu, Edit toolbar, and Formula bar by following these steps:
Click View in the Applications menu.
In the resulting View menu, choose Formula Bar.
The Formula bar vanishes.
Open the View menu again and choose Full Screen.
The Applications menu and Edit toolbar disappear, as shown.
In your spreadsheet, each cell is outlined with very thin grey lines called gridlines. Gridlines are not borders; they are imaginary boundaries, for reference only, and they won’t appear when you print. If you would like to work without gridlines, you can hide them by opening the View menu and clicking Gridlines.
To turn gridlines back on, just open the View menu and choose Gridlines.
