Importing and exporting

Press Import in the editor toolbar, or drag a file straight onto the grid. Nemi Sheets reads .nemi and .nsheet, Excel .xlsx and .xlsm, OpenDocument .ods, CSV, TSV and plain text, JSON, and tables inside HTML and Markdown files. You can also drop a file on the Sheets home, or choose Open as Nemi Sheet on a spreadsheet in Files, and it becomes a new spreadsheet of its own.

An Excel or OpenDocument file brings every tab of the workbook with it, with the names and in the order they had, including hidden tabs that hold anything and empty tabs that are not hidden. An Excel import also keeps each tab's column widths and row heights, its hyperlinks and its pictures with their anchors. Two things stay behind: a sheet that is not a grid of cells, such as a chart on a sheet of its own, and anything past the first 100 tabs. Nemi tells you when either happens. An empty hidden tab in an Excel file is left out without a word, because there is nothing on it to lose.

Excel formulas that Nemi can calculate come in as formulas, including ones that read another tab, so the tabs stay linked and keep working when you change a number. Where Excel saved an answer with the file, Nemi keeps the formula only if it works out that same answer. Otherwise, for example when a formula uses a function Nemi does not have, the cell comes in as the value Excel showed. Formulas that use today's date are kept and show today's value. A file saved without any answers, as some programs write them, brings its formulas in unchecked. OpenDocument files come in as values.

Two files are refused on purpose rather than half-read. A legacy .xls is not supported, so open it in Excel and save it as .xlsx first. A text document, .docx, .odt or .rtf, belongs in Docs and Sheets will say so instead of turning your letter into a grid.

Getting data out#

A locked copy#

Open Settings in the editor toolbar for a password-locked .nemi. Type a passphrase of at least four characters twice and the file you download is encrypted with AES-256-GCM: without the passphrase nobody can read it, us included. There is no way to recover a forgotten passphrase.

Form responses arrive as rows#

A form built in Forms writes each submission as a new row in an ordinary Nemi spreadsheet that you own, in your workspace. There is no export step, no sync and no second copy of the answers living somewhere else. The Sheets home badges that spreadsheet as Form responses so you can tell it apart from a sheet you made yourself.

It is a normal spreadsheet in every other way: you can add columns of your own beside the answers, write formulas over them, format them, and export the lot. Deleting it is not something to do casually, because it is where the responses live.

When an import does not look right#

• The columns all landed in one. A CSV with an unusual separator. Save it from the source as a comma or tab separated file and try again.
• Numbers came in as text. Values that carry a currency symbol or a thousands separator arrive as text. Strip the symbol at the source, or use TEXT and the maths functions on a cleaned column.
• A picture is missing from an Excel export. Nemi tells you how many pictures it could not fetch rather than hiding it. Reload the sheet and export again.
• Only one tab came in. CSV, TSV, JSON, HTML and Markdown hold a single table, so they always arrive as one tab. Export the workbook as .xlsx, .ods or .nemi to bring every tab.
• A formula came in as a plain number. Nemi either does not have that function or worked out a different answer than Excel saved, so it kept the value Excel showed. Type the formula again with functions from Formulas if you want it live.

If a file will not open at all, it may be a format for the file converter rather than for Sheets. And if you want a sheet readable by a script rather than a person, there is a read-only JSON endpoint for a sheet under Share.