Docs Help

There are different ways of getting started using Google Spreadsheets: you can create a new online spreadsheet, you can upload an existing one, or you can use a template from our templates gallery.

Creating and saving a spreadsheet

To create a new spreadsheet, go to your Docs list, click the Create new drop-down menu, and select Spreadsheet.

Click the Save button in the top right corner of the spreadsheet, enter a name for the spreadsheet in the window that appears, and click OK. When your spreadsheet is saved, it will appear in your Docs list.

Auto-save: Google Docs auto-saves your spreadsheet multiple times each minute. The time when the spreadsheet was last saved is shown in the top right corner of the screen.

If you'd like to save and close a newly created spreadsheet, click the File button and select Save and close from the drop-down menu.

To save a local copy of a spreadsheet, you can download it to your computer. To do this, open your spreadsheet, click the File menu and point your mouse to the Download as option. You'll see these file types: .csv, .html, .ods, .pdf, .xls, .txt. Select a file type for download, then click OK in the browser window that appears.

Uploading a spreadsheet

You can upload an existing spreadsheet to Google Spreadsheets at any time. Here's how:

1. Click the Upload button at the top of the sidebar in your Docs list page.
2. Click Browse and select the spreadsheet.
3. Click Open.
4. Click Upload File. The uploaded file appears in your Docs list.

Templates gallery

If you want to quickly create a spreadsheet, and would like some help, you can pick one of the templates in our templates gallery. Each template has text that you can replace with your own, and formatting that you can reuse.

You can also access the templates gallery from your spreadsheet by going to File > New > From template...