When you create an AppSheet application from Google Sheets, AppSheet does the following.
- Asks Google Sheets to export your Google workbook as an Excel
.xlsx
file. - AppSheet uses an Excel library to read the contents of the exported
.xlsx
file. This allows it to extract the cell data values, cell formats, cell formulas, and other values from each worksheet in the exported.xlsx
file. - In the case of formulas, AppSheet converts the formulas from
A1
format toR1C1
format. It is easier for AppSheet to interpret formulas inR1C1
format. AppSheet can more easily determine if a formula is accessing values in other rows. To learn move aboutR1C1
formulas see A1 versus R1C1 formulas. - AppSheet uses all of the information extracted from the worksheet to infer the attributes of each column in the worksheet. AppSheet uses this information to determine the name, type, precision, formula, and other attributes of each field in the table created from the worksheet.
- AppSheet does this when you first add a table that is based on a Google Sheet and repeats this each time you click Regenerate.
Fortunately, the vast majority of Google Sheets formulas can be translated into equivalent Microsoft Excel formulas. Unfortunately, some Google Sheets formulas have no Microsoft Excel equivalents. These include:
ADD
ARRAYFORMULA
CONCAT
CONTINUE
COUNTUNIQUE
DETECTLANGUAGE
DIVIDE
EQ
FILTER
GOOGLEFINANCE
GOOGLETOURNAMENT
GOOGLETRANSLATE
GT
GTE
IMAGE
IMPORTDATA
IMPORTFEED
IMPORTHTML
IMPORTRANGE
IMPORTXML
JOIN
LT
LTE
MINUS
MULTIPLY
POW
QUERY
SORT
SPARKLINE
SPLIT
UMINUS
UNARY_PERCENT
UPLUS