“Why is such a basic spreadsheet function still not available?”

At this point it seems fairly obvious that Google isn&#x27;t planning for Google Docs to compete with Excel on features. Rather, they&#x27;ve figured out some ratio of power users to non-power-users (like the oft-repeated claim that 80% of the users only use 20% of the features but in Excel&#x27;s case I suspect the ratio is even higher) and they&#x27;ve decided to implement only the basic features used by non-power-users.<p>I&#x27;m not sure why Google bothers to have a &#x27;share an idea&#x27; forum when they have no intention of implementing the 80% features. It&#x27;s bound to be a magnet for complaints when feature requests get ignored.

The feelings of entitlement harbored by some of those posters is astonishing.

I suppose the real answer is to just use Excel. The last time I used Google&#x27;s spreadsheet was probably about 2 to 3 years ago and there were major deficiencies then. I used the spreadsheet in Open Office&#x2F;Libre Office for awhile. And then I went back to Excel. It has been refreshing.

Although I appreciate what Ted J is trying to do, I think he&#x27;s missing the point. When 50 users say &quot;we really need this feature&quot;, the answer rarely is &quot;you don&#x27;t need it, you only think you do because you&#x27;ve always been wrong about it&quot;.