In my desire to explore and develop my own use of cell-writing, I have experimented with a range of spreadsheet applications and found that it was possible to modify all of them in some way or other so as to produce a cell-writing system. These modifications are primarily cosmetic and concerned primarily with how things are presented visually. Most of these modifications are to do with personal preferences. For example, I hide the formula bar. Since I work directly within cells, I see no need for it to be visible. I also hide as many of the other toolbars as possible as well as the row and column headings. Left with only the menu bar, even then I usually choose to go into full screen mode. That leaves me with just a vertical scroll bar on the right and worksheet tabs at the bottom of the screen. Even these can be disabled in the application I use. I just choose to keep them – I could do without.
I prefer to work with a minimum of distractions. That very much drives my choice of which spreadsheet to use.
The application I have come to use as a matter of choice is LibreOffice Calc. This is part of the LibreOffice suite of applications. This application grew out of OpenOffice Calc (part of the OpenOffice suite) which I used originally. I prefer this application for a number of reasons. Importantly, when I am using it, I find it very easy to forget that it is in fact a spreadsheet at all. It becomes simply a grid containing an array of cells. This is not least because of what this application allows so much to be customised.
In this respect, I find its colour management options particularly useful. Given my own needs, I have developed a system which uses a deep blue (00007F), 14 point cursive font (Segoe Print), on a pale blue background (A3B5FF). Cell heights have been adjusted accordingly and I have adjusted the width – and therefore number of visible cells – to something I find visibly appealing.
LibreOffice also has the huge advantage of being free. Furthermore, it is portable and can be installed on a USB drive. (Indeed, it is possible to install the whole LibreOffice suite on a USB drive and work from that.)
Much of this is also possible using Microsoft Excel as a cell-writing system. This is the most commonly used spreadsheet in the world at the present time, so many people will already have it installed on their computers as part of the Microsoft Office suite. If you already have this and don't want to experiment with LibreOffice Calc, Excel works fine. Indeed, Excel 2013 has refinements that make its use in cell-writing particularly appealing. While, as applications, Calc and Excel may have a slightly different feel, the way one performs cell-writing using them is no different. Templates for both spreadsheets are included.
These can be freely downloaded, modified and distributed by anybody who wants to try – and I hope recommend – the cell-writing technique. Each template contains a sheet with basic instructions. If you distribute the template to others, please include the instructions page.
I have noticed that when a template or proforma is used on a different computer, it does not necessarily look or work exactly the same as it did on the computer upon which it was made. My own system uses numerous customisations and modifications of LibreOffice. The template I have included have none of these so as to allow the user scope to make their own as they see fit.
I could go into extensive technical detail about what you might do to your application of choice. I could also go into extensive detail about the similarities and differences between LibreOffice Calc and Microsoft Excel. There is just one technical note I should note [Next tab] otherwise my advice is to experiment. This I have found it to be invaluable in developing my own cell-writing experience. At the end of the day, it is up to the user how to put the application they choose into practice.
* Technical Note - Beginning cell content with an apostrophe
There is one technical detail that is worth mentioning in case potential users of the cell-writing technique get into difficulties. Because spreadsheet applications are primarily for numerical work, worksheets typically are set up to expect numbers. While text can usually be entered directly without any problems, there are things about which one should be careful. Should a sentence being entered into a cell begin with an apostrophe, your application may hide it or even remove it. In the default format, the apostrophe acts as a signal to the application. This needs to be changed so that that signal does not apply and one can start the sentence the way one wants.
To get around this, one can format the cells to expect text rather than numbers. This works in some spreadsheet applications but not all. Alternatively – and less satisfactorily – one can type two apostrophes at the start of the sentence instead of just one. Only one of these tends to disappear while the other remains. My experiments have shown that when text entered in this way is copied and pasted into a text editor or word processor, the one apostrophe that remains is the only one copied across.