Tips, tricks, tools, and techniques for Microsoft Office

If you need to share a file with a colleague or friend, there are dozens of options, many of them free online file-sharing sites. eXpresso (http://www.expressocorp.com) is a free online service that helps you lets do more than just share Excel files -- you can edit them, too.

After signing up for a free account, you select the files you want to upload to the eXpresso server, set the rights (view, edit, download, or copy) you want to grant others, and click "Share" to make them available to the friends or colleagues whose names and e-mail addresses you provide. The service sends an invitation to them to join eXpresso. Once a user accepts your invitation to sign-up, he or she can log in to work with the file(s) according to the rights you specified -- for example, they can view important files without being able to edit them.

You don't have to share the entire file; you can make only selected sections available for editing. Best of all, several users can work on the same spreadsheet at the same time, and all users see all changes in real time. There's even a chat window if you want to use it instead of a telephone conference call to communicate with your collaborators.

There are several ways to edit a file. The first, and easiest, is to edit the file online. You log into the service from your browser, and thanks to Microsoft's Office Web Components (which the service requires you install), eXpresso lets you do some basic editing on a spreadsheet: adding a Sum to a column, simple formatting and sorting, creating a formula, and the like. For quick-and-dirty editing of a shared file, this is the preferred method, and is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1

Editing online is just one option, however. If you want the familiar Excel interface, and all Excel functionality, you can download and install the eXpresso add-in. This adds a toolbar (Excel 2003) or Add-in group (Excel 2007) to Excel itself (Excel 2000 and 2002 are also supported). From within Excel you log in to the eXpresso service, open the file (which "locks" the file, preventing others from using it at the same time), make your changes, and then save the file using the eXpresso add-in button so your file is automatically saved to the eXpresso server.

This approach has several advantages, such as letting you work with charts, a feature not offered when you edit online (because of the limits of the Web components, not because of eXpresso). You can also upload a brand new file directly from within Excel.

If you edit the worksheet directly online, you'll face some limits on your work because of Microsoft's Web component; eXpresso doesn't support text wrapping, protected areas, formulas that link multiple workbooks, special characters in sheet names, PivotTables, split and freeze panes, printing (a big hole to our way of thinking), charts and graphs, images, and data validation. Working from within Excel directly makes more sense when such features are needed.

The service says it works with Excel files, but in fact it only works with Excel 2003 (and earlier) files. Excel 2007's file formats can't be uploaded. A final limitation: if there are macros in a file, you can't execute them online.

Another way to edit an Excel worksheet is to download the file to your hard drive, make your changes, and then upload the changes, though given the Excel add-in, this approach seems cumbersome.

ADDITIONAL FEATURES

eXpresso lets you set alerts so you'll be notified when another user works on a shared file. For example, you can tell eXpresso to send you an e-mail notice when a collaborator accepts, edits, or downloads the file. You can also track individual cells and be notified when one of them changes, a very effective alert when a worksheet has been modified. The down side: while you can track many individual cells at once, you can't track changes within a range.

eXpresso provides a file history so you can tell who manipulated the file (uploaded or locked it, for example) and when that action occurred. I also liked the "compare" feature which lets you mark two files on the server and then view the differences from within eXpresso.

The service has a lot going for it. It's easy to set up, and while no speed demon, it does offer a simple way to both share and collaborate on worksheets. Real-time collaboration for simple changes in files Excel 2003 and earlier versions (editing a cell's value, for example) is easy. For individual use, the Excel add-in simplifies the download-edit-upload sequence. Having alerts is a nice bonus, and you can't beat the price.

-- James E. Powell

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