Google Spreadsheets Hints and Tips

Checking that email addresses entered using Google Forms are correct

2014-08-07T14:35:00.004-07:00

If you use a Google Form to collect data email addresses, then you may want to use the Forms data-validation tool to check that the entered addresses are at least in the right "shape" to be email addresses.

How to turn on email-address validation in a Google Forms

Edit (or create) the question where you want the answer to be an email address.

Set question type as Text

Choose Advanced settings

Tick the Data Validation checkbox

Choose Text

Choose Email Address

Type in the message which should be shown to someone who enters text which does not look like a valid email address.

Complete and save the form. When it is viewed, it should apply the email-address checking rules to any values that are entered into the fields that you turned validation on for.

What does address validation check

Google's email-address checking tool looks at the letters, numbers and other characters which are entered into the field, and decides if they look like a real email address.

What doesn't it check

The email-address validation tool does not try to send an email message to the address, so it does not know if is an address which is currently in use, and able to receive messages.

Examples

Mary@gmail.com - looks valid, will be accepted, even if there is no such address
Mary123@gail.com - looks valid, will be accepted, even if there's no such domain as gail.com
mary.gmail.com - does not look valid there's no @ sign, will be rejected
mary smith@gmail.com - does not look valid, because there's a space in the middle, will be rejected.

Also, Forms cannot know if the email address was entered by the person who uses it, or by someone else. This is something you should think carefully about, in terms of what you do with the data. Do not assume that all email addresses which you collect will have been provided by the right person. Some will be wrong because of typos etc, while some will be entered maliciously.

What happens when someone enters an email address that doesn't conform to the rules.

They are shown the error message that you specified.

If the question is a required one, then they cannot move off the form until they enter a valid email address.

Transferring ownership of a Google Sheets file

2014-06-10T14:50:00.000-07:00

By default, you own every Google Sheets spreadsheet file that you create or sync or upload.

And you can share these files with any other Google account.

But there are some limits about which of these files you can make someone else the owner of:

Google Apps Customers: can't transfer ownership of any file to someone outside your domain.

Only Google Apps customers in Premier, Government, and Education domains can transfer ownership of a synced or uploaded file (like a PDF or image file) - and of course this is only to someone in your own domain.

Consumer (ie non corporate / organisation wide) Google Drive users: can't transfer ownership of a synced or uploaded file (ie a file that started its life on your own personal machine) - but you can transfer ownership of files that you created inside Apps itself.

Apart from these, you can transfer ownership of Google documents and folders to anyone else, as long as they have an email address which either is already linked to a Google account, or they are willing to set up a Google account for

How to make someone else the owner of a spreadsheet file

Go to Google Drive

Tick the check-box beside (currently on the left side of) the file or folder you want to transfer

From the More menu, choose"Share..." - or just click the Share icon.

Give access to the person you want to give the file ownership to (unless they already have it) - and if they aren't an existing Google user, wait for then to accept the invitation and thus show up on the list of people with access.

In the Sharing screen, click the drop-down menu on the right hand side of the new owner's name, and choose "Is owner."

Click Save changes.

Job Done! The person now owns the file - and you don't own it any more.

What happens after your transfer ownership in this way

The new owner will get an email telling them that they have been made the owner of the file.

You will still be an editor on the file. But because you are no longer the owner, you won't be able to:

Remove existing collaborators
Share the file with other people
Change the visibility options (ie who else can see the spreadsheet)
Give collaborators permission to change other people's access privileges
Delete the file. (You can remove it from the list of files that are shared with you, but it will still be in the new owner's Google Drive)

Acknowledgements

This post expands on the official Google support post at https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2494892?hl=en

How to name a column (or row) in a Google Spreadsheet

2014-06-07T03:58:00.000-07:00

This article explains two ways that you can name a column inside a Google Spreadsheets worksheet.

The same approach can be used for rows - you simply need to use the word "row" instead of "column" in the following directions.

Option 1 - Type in the name

To use this approach:

Type in the name at the top of the column.
Optional - make it bold or a different colour.
Turn on Freeze panes (View > Freeze Column > Freeze Column 1) so that when someone scrolls down the sheet, the name-value is still visible.

This is the most "reader friendly" approach, because it draws attention to the name and the data.

But to use the contents of the column in a formula, you still have to refer to it explicitly not by name, eg =Max(A2:A4).

Option 2 - Use the Range Naming tool

To use this approach:

Select the column
From the menu, choose Data > Names Ranges ...
Type in the column name
Press Done.

Optional but recommended if you have named the entire column:
Format the column background (with the Fill Colour icon from the menu bar), to remind yourself that the entire column is the named range

This is the most "formula friendly" approach, because it lets you use the name in formulas eg==Max(Animals)

It also means that the first row of data is in Row 1 of the spreadsheet, which some people find less confusing to look at.
(Warning: in general, basing formulas on the row number rather than the actual data is bad spreadsheeting practise, because it makes it a lot harder to change the data later. If you really want the row number, put it into a new column and use the data from that.)

However you cannot to put anything else except relevant data into the named column: all formulas that refer to it must go into other columns. And unfortunately, after you have named the range, even when you select it, there is nothing on-screen to remind you that the range is named, unless you turn on the Data > Name Ranges panel - and even that only shows you a list of the ranges not a visual indicator.

Examples

There is an example spreadsheet showing both of these approaches here.

Versions

This approach works in Google Sheets files created since the "new" version was released, and older ones converted to the new format. It may not be available in uncoverted olde
r version spreadsheets.

Give someone else access to a Google Spreadsheet that you have created

2014-06-06T11:14:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you will want someone else to be able to read or change a Google Spreadsheets file that you have created.

For example, recently my choir's recruitment co-ordinator was on holiday during a week when we knew that some people would contact us to ask about membership. By giving me edit-access to the audition-scheduling spreadsheet, I could look after these messages for her, and she had immediate access to the up-to-date information when she came home.

Giving everyone in the whole world (well at least everyone with a Google account) access is very easy: you just change the first, generic, option in the access control lists.

But giving access to specific individual people is a little more desirable and only a tiny bit harder to set up.

How to to give a specific person rights to a Google Spreadsheet that you own:

Go to Google Drive

Tick the check-box beside the file or folder that you want to let another named person have "editor" access to.

From the More menu, choose"Share..." - or just click the Share icon share icon.

Enter the other person's email address in the "Invite people" field. (you do not tell the other person in advance, but it is a good idea because it stops people from stopping "unnecessary" email.

Check the rights that Google suggests giving to them are what you want to give them.
The default is value "Can Edit", but other options are

"Is Owner"
"Can Comment"
"Can View"

Optional - also choose:

Tick or untick "Notify people via email"
Use the Add Message link to send some extra explanation or a personal message from you to the person being given access.
Tick or untick "Send a copy to myself"

Click Send.

If the email address that you entered is not associated with an existing Google account - as either the account name or as a recovery address - then you are asked to confirm the request, and warned that anyone who gets the invitation will be able to get access.

Click "Yes" if this is what you want, or "No" if you have made a mistake and want to change it.

What happens next

What does the person you shared the file with see

If you have ticked "Notify by email" then the person will get an email message, from you and with the file name and their email address in the Subject field, saying

This message body says "I've shared an item with you", and shows the file-name and link.

It may also say "It's not an attachment - it's stored online. To open this item, just click the link above", if the other person reads it using an email that doesn't support HTML, and so just shows messages in plain text.

When they click the link, they will be invited to sign into Gmail, using either an existing or a new account.

However if they are already signed in to Google with a different account that has not had the file shared with it, then they see a message saying that they do not have access, and with links to let them ask for access or switch accounts.

What do you see

If the email address that you entered is already associated with a Google account, then:

The other person is shown in your list of people with access to the file with their current profile picture, and
The file is shown in their "Shared with me" section of Google drive.

If the email address that you entered is not associated with a Google account, then:

The other person is shown in your list of people with access to the file - but with an email address and an email icon only.

When the person who receives the email message logs into Google using any (new or existing) account, they get access to the file, and their Google account details are added to your list of authorized users - and the original email address is still shown too, with a comment "This invitation has been used by 1 person".

Giving permission to sheets within a spreadsheet.

Sometimes, you may want to just let a person see an individual worksheet within a bigger spreadsheet. Currently Google Drive does not support this - and I don't expect this to change in the near future.

Adding values in one column, based on another one, using the SUMIF function

2014-05-19T12:07:00.000-07:00

This post explains how to calculate the total of the values in one row or column, based on the corresponding values in another related row or column, using the SUMIF function in Google Sheets.

Sometimes, you may want to sum values from a column, but only include ones which contain a specific value (eg a word) in another column in the same line.

Or to add together values from a row, but only include ones which contain a specific value in another row in the same line.

For example, in this spreadsheet I want to show the overall total of course durations, and also a sub-total that only includes courses for 3rd-level students.

How to add values together

The sum formula, for calculating find the overall total, is very easy: it is just =sum(B2:B4)

How to conditionally add values together

Applying a condition is only a little more complicated: you need a formula that says "add these together, based on the corresponding value of that".

In Google Sheets, the SumIf() formula is the one to use.

It takes up three values inside the brackets (ie parameters). They are:

Range: The set of cells to check for the specific value (ie the 'criterion')

Criterion: The pattern or test to apply

Sum-range: The range (ie set of cells) to be added up. Note: you only have to inlcude this if it is different from Range.

And the formula is used like this:

The example above shows adding the values based in a column, based on another column. But the technique works just as well for rows, using a row-wise range statement like this:

Extra for Experts

The condition does not have to just be a value. It can also be a range condition, like:

SumIf(b:b, >0, e:e)

There is more information about the SumIf() function here: https://support.google.com/drive/answer/3093583?hl=en-GB

New tool for using Google Sheets on your smartphone or tablet

2014-05-13T17:16:00.000-07:00

Google have announced new apps for several components of their Drive software, including Google Sheets.

Screenshot of the new Google Sheets app for Android

They say this makes it possible to create content on the go - but even with a very new smartphone, I'm finding it hard to imagine making a spreadsheet of any size. It just feels weird to have the formula-bar at the bottom of the screen.

And I've had some "interesting" experiences browsing a spreadsheet created in the desktop version which records the responses to a questionnaire created in Google Forms, which has a lot of long text-fields: it's easy to hide a column by accident, and without a shift-key I'm not sure how to make visible again.

But overall I like the idea, especially the way that I can effectively use Sheets as a calculator app which lets me see and easily change my on-the-go calculations. And I can imagine that it could be a handy way to build some highly targeted "mini-apps" to do particular calculations in a spreadsheet, without the overhead of installing a separate app.

The Sheets app vs the Drive app

This comment from Google sums up the difference - bolding mine:

use the Drive app to view and organize all of your documents, spreadsheets, presentations, photos and more.

And by implication, use the Sheets, (and Docs, and when it arrives Slides) app to change (ie edit) your spreadsheets et al.

How to combine a cell value and a text-string

2014-05-01T13:50:00.002-07:00

Sometimes you may want to write a formula which combines the value(s) from some cells with some other text, and puts the result into the one cell.

For example, I have a spreadsheet which generates the HTML code statements for drawing a table, based on the values which I put into a table-area on the spreadsheet. And I need to combine the values from the table area with other HTML commands like "" and ""

The way to do this in Google Spreadsheets is to use a string concatenation operator (&) or a string-concatenation function ( CONCAT( , ) or CONCATENATE(...) )

For example, I label the value from C5 with the text "Score type:", and so in the results column which I use to make the table-cell code for it, the formula is:

=CONCAT("<td>Score type: ", CONCAT(C5, "</td>"))

Or a less verbose way to achieve the same thing is:

="<td>Score type: " & C5 & "</td>"

What's the difference between "&" CONCAT and CONCATENATE?

The CONCAT() function and the "&" operator do the same thing, so whether you use one or the other is is about which one looks nicer to you.

The CONCATENATE() can be used to join any number of text strings together, so another way to write the statement is

=CONCAT("<td>Score type: ", C5, "</td>"))

In general, it's best to use the option which makes the formula the most readable, or easiest to diagnose if something goes wrong.

So often I will use the CONCAT() function in each one of a set of helper columns, and then use one CONCATENATE() function at the end to join them all together, because this is easier to debug than trying to do a lot of string operations all in the one cell.

For example:

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How to refer to a range in another sheet

2014-04-30T12:42:00.002-07:00

If you use multiple worksheets in a spreadsheet, then you can refer to an individual cell in a worksheet - including one that you are not currently working in - like this:

=Sheet2!B1

(A formula like this returns the value in Worksheet Sheet2, Cell B1.)

And you can even combine values from different sheets by putting different sheet-name references into a formula like this;

=Sheet2!B1 + Sheet3!B1

(A formula like this returns the value in Worksheet Sheet2, Cell B1 plus the value in Worksheet Sheet3, Cell B1)

This makes some people think that they should refer to a range of cells in a different worksheet (eg B1:b16) like this:

=SUM(Sheet2!B1:Sheet2!B16)

However using this formula shows #ERROR! as a result, with a not-very-helpful error message of "Formula Parse Error".

The correct way to refer to a range of cells in a separate worksheet is to use the sheet-name only once, like this:

=SUM(Sheet2!B1:B16)
(A formula like this returns the sum of values in cells B1:B16 in Sheet2.)

The reason for this is that within the one function call (eg SUM(...) or AVERAGE(...) ) all the cells must come from the same worksheet. It does not make any sense to say:

=SUM(Sheet2!B1:Sheet3!B16)

because it's not defined what is in-between Sheet2 and Sheet3.

But it does make sense to combine function calls like this:

=SUM(Sheet2!B1:B16) + =SUM(Sheet3!B1:B37)

(A formula like this returns the sum of values in cells B1:B16 in Sheet2, plus values in cells B1:B37 in Sheet3)

Extra for Experts

Of course this only works if they type of function that you are using is distributitive, ie you can do one part and the other part, and then you put them both together using the same functon, eg

= MIN ( MIN(Sheet2!B1:B16), MIN(Sheet3!B1:B22))
(A formula like this returns the smallest value in cells B1:B16 in Sheett and cells B1:B37 in Sheet3)

For functions like AVERAGE, where the number of items in the underlying range is used in the calculation, it does not work, eg

= AVERAGE ( AVERAGE(Sheet2!B1:B16), AVERAGE(Sheet3!B1:B22))

will give a result but it will generally not be the arithmetic mean of the value in cells B1:B16 in Sheett and cells B1:B37 in Sheet3 because the values from Sheet2 will get too great a weighting in the calculation.

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How to find the difference between two time values

2014-04-23T16:52:00.000-07:00

Calculating the difference between two times (or date-times) in Google Spreadsheets is just as simple as calculating the difference between two dates, provided the time values are formatted as Times.

You simply do a "minus" between the later time and the earlier one.

At its simplest, you just do a minus calculation, like this:

C5 = C4 - C3

The result that is shows is the time differences, expressed as the number of days between the two values.

You may want to do further calculations, or apply Duration formatting, to make this number more user-friendly.

Troubleshooting

If it looks like your time difference calculation is not working correctly, then then are are few things to check.

Are your time values (ie not just the result) formatted as Times?
Check this under menu: Format > Number > Time.

NB It is not the same as the Font of "Times", which is totally different

Do you know that what is shown is the number of days, and this may be a fraction or decimal value.

Possibly it is not formatted the way you want it to be.

Check the formatting under Format > Number, and remember that 15 minutes = 0.25 of an hour, or 0.010416667 of a day.

Extra for experts

A simple minus calculation only works correctly if:

Both times are in the same time-zone
If the later time is on a different day, then the values that you are calculating on must both have a "date" part as well as a "time" part.

If you need to cover these cases, then check back again soon, so see posts explaining how to handle these situations.

Was this helpful? You may also need to read

Calculating the difference between two dates
Display formats and date / time differences

Why date calculations sometimes need to have +1 added to them: whole vs partial days

2014-04-23T16:38:00.004-07:00

When people prepare a list of start and end dates, they generally assume that the start and end date are both included.

.
For example, in my summer school management spreadsheet, start-date of 3-June actually means "9am on 3 June", and end-date of 6-June actually means "5pm on 6 June" - even though I haven't explicitly named the times.

But spreadsheets do not work like this: if they see a date value with out a time, then they assume that it means 12-midnight at the beginning of that day.

For example, Google Spreadsheets understands

"start-date of 3-June" as "3-June, 00:00:00"
"end-date of 6-June" as "6-June, 00:00:00".

Therefore when a spreadsheet is told to calculate the difference between these two date values, if works out the number of whole days between the two values.

In the example shown, this is three days

However most people would expect the calculation to return four days, ie to include both the start-date and the end date, and the result to equal four days

There are two ways to fix this:

Option 1: Add one to the results

Under this option, you need to change the formula

It becomes

=D4-C4+1

This is the simplest approach, and is best when you do not need to consider times in your calculations.

Option 2: Add times to the date values

Under this option, you do not need to change the formula.

Instead you alter the values that the calculation is based on, adding a time-part to them.

This works - but the result of a difference calculation is the actual number of days between the two values, expressed as a whole number, ie with a decimal point.

eg 9am on 13 June to 5 pm on 19 June returns 4.333333333

This may be ok in some cases, eg if you just want to know if the duration is greater than a certain value.

But if you actually want to show the number of days, even if they are not complete days, then you may need to use a function like ROUNDUP(value, places) as well as the subtraction formula.

To do this, the function becomes:

=RoundUp(D4-C4, 0)

The ", 0" in the formula says to round the value up to the nearest integer, ie number with zero decimal places.

Was this helpful? You may also need to read

Calculating the difference between two times
Display formats and date / time differences

How to show the difference between two dates

2014-04-23T16:12:00.001-07:00

Finding out how long between two dates in a Google Spreadsheet is very simple: you just subtract the later one from the earlier one, like this:

Looking in more detail at what happens on the spreadsheet in this formula, you just need to

Type an equals sign ("=") - this tells the spreadsheet that you are going to put a formula into that cell
Type (or point to) the later value
Type a minus sign ("-")
Type (or point to) the earlier value
Press Enter

Google Sheets uses colour-coding in the cells and dotted lines to help you see exactly what cells the formula is pointing to.

Was this helpful? You may also need to read:

Date-calculations and Plus-One: whole vs partial days
Calculating the difference between two times
Google Sheets date-format effects on calculation results

Understanding Google Sheets, Spreadsheets and Worksheets

2014-04-21T08:23:00.000-07:00

There's a great discussion which many people have had, about the difference between email and Gmail.

The short answer is "Gmail is a type of email system". But to really make sense of this, you need to "get" the difference between email messages, the concept of email message handling, and being able to use different front-end applications to look at the same email message. If someone doesn't have this idea, then their immediate response to "Gmail is a type of email" is "Ok then, so what is fmail?"

I have a nasty feeling that Google's choice to name all their office-applications by such generic names (Sheets, Docs, Slides) is likely to lead to the same confusion in more areas.

This post is an attempt to simply explain the basic concepts of spreadsheets, Google Sheets, and worksheets within sheets.

What is a spreadsheet?

A spreadsheet is a row-and-column based tool for working with data on a computer.

It is different from a word-processor (eg Microsoft Word or Google Docs), because it has tools that make doing mathematical / arithmetic calculations easy.

It is different from a database (eg Microsoft Access, MySQL) because it doesn't force you to put data into every single row and column that it has, and it has very easy-to-use tools to make attractive displays.

It is different from a Slides file, because it does not use slides to display the data in it.

There are various ways to organize spreadsheets, but fundamentally each one is a file that is divided up into a grid made up of rows and columns,

The intersection of each row and column is a cell.

Each cell is named according to the row and column that make it up. Normally the column name goes first, and the

In each cell you can put either text (ie words), numbers, or formulas ie calculations that take the values from other cells, combine them in some way and then display the results.

For example, the picture below shows the beginnings of a spreadsheet that contains the timetable for a summer school. I've done it in a spreadsheet, rather than an Document file, because I want to use some calculation and summary functions, as well as making it look professional.

Spreadsheet files vs Speadsheet programs

The word "spreadsheet" is actually an abbreviation.

Sometimes is it short for "spreadsheet file". This has a file which has the structure described above and which can be used by a spreadsheet program.

Sometimes it means "spreadsheet proram". This is a piece of software (aka an application) which is used to create and work with spreadsheet files. Spreadsheet programs may be on-line (like Google Sheets), or run on individual computers (like Excel or Lotus 1-2-3).

Because of this double-meaning, you can write some very strange sentences in English, eg

"I will use my spreadsheet to make a spreadsheet to calculate the spread of sheets through the hotel."

meaning

"I will use my spreadsheet-program to make a spreadsheet-file to calculate the distribution of bed linen through the hotel."

Google now distinguish between

Google Drive, ie the software that you use to manage files (or any type), and
Google Docs ie the Document, Spreadsheet, Presentation, Form or Drawing objects that you can create inside Drive.

Spreadsheets vs Sheets / Worksheets

To start with, a spreadsheet is like a big blank canvas, waiting for you to put numbers and formulae into it.

But that size can be quite overwhelming: it can be hard to find things in spreadsheets that other people made, and it can be difficult to make different "views" which all look good, because each column has to be the same width through the whole sheet.

So the concept of Tabs was introduced. Basically the are extra layers of the the spreadsheet, stored in the same file.

In almost all spreadsheet programs (including Google Sheets), you see the tabs at the bottom left hand corner

In both Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets (the program), these tabs are called Worksheets.

But they have default names "Sheet1", "Sheet2", etc so sometimes people just call them sheets, and talk about "Sheet2 in the sheet" - and this can be very confusing if you're not sure of the difference.

If there are several worksheets in a sheet, then the name of each cell becomes:

The sheet name
An exclamation mark
The row-and-column reference.

In the picture above, these are all separate cells:

Timetable!B5 - which is on the Timetable tab / sheet
Registrations!B5 - which is on the Registrations tab / sheet
Sheet6!B5 - which is on a sheet called Sheet6 (you cannot see this in the picture)

You can add a new worksheet to your Google Sheets file using the plus sign on the very left hand side of the bottom tab bar

How to combine a range of values into one cell, with a character in between them

2014-04-18T00:24:00.000-07:00

If you have a list of items in a spreadsheet, set up like a table, then you can use the join function to combine the values and display them all together in a horizontal list, with some characters (eg a comma and a space) in between tehm..

For example, in my summer-school management spreadsheet I have a list of teachers in column C, currently in rows 1 (heading) to five.

Teachers
-----------
Fiona
Patrick
Sean
Lynne

To put the teacher-names into the one cell, nicely formatted with a comma and a space between each one, I could use the JOIN() function, like this:

= JOIN( ", " ; C2:C5 )

But there are two problems:

The result is "Fiona, Patrick, Sean, Lynne, " - there is an extra "comma space" at the end

If the number of teachers changes, the I have to adjust the formula

A better option it to also use the FILTER() function, to remove values that you dont't want in this case, blanks which are represented by "".

So the formula becomes:

= JOIN( ", " ; FILTER(C2:C9999; NOT(C2:C999 = "") ))

This says to join all the values in cells C2 through to C9999 together, to put a comma and space between each one, but to leave out any that are blank,

Using this, my list becomes "Fiona, Patrick, Sean, Lynne", and I can add up to 9998 names in the Teachers column and it still works.

Extra for Experts

If I had used named ranges, and so didn't have a heading at the top of the column, then the formula could become even more flexible, with no limit to the number of rows included, like this:

= JOIN( ", " ; FILTER(C:C; NOT(C:C = "") ))
or

= JOIN( ", " ; FILTER(Teachers; NOT(Teachers = "") ))

Where to get help with Google Sheets

2014-04-16T17:24:00.000-07:00

Google's Getting started guide:

https://support.google.com/drive/topic/20322

Google's own help pages for sheets

https://support.google.com/drive/topic/20322?hl=en-GB&ref_topic=2811806

The Google Docs product forum:

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/docs
This has questions and answers about all types of Google Drive/ Google Docs files.

StackExchange Webapps GoogleSheets category

http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/google-spreadsheets

Note: answers here tend to follow the most-generic, most-complicated approach to finding a solution, and you will often by told to use a script when this is not strictly necessary. But it's an excellent place for getting scripting help.

Excel Help Forum

http://www.excelforum.com/for-other-platforms-mac-google-docs-mobile-os-etc/
This privately-run forum has a thread for other spreadsheet tools, including Google Docs.

Range:	The set of cells to check for the specific value (ie the 'criterion')
Criterion:	The pattern or test to apply
Sum-range:	The range (ie set of cells) to be added up. Note: you only have to inlcude this if it is different from Range.

Google Spreadsheets Hints and Tips

Checking that email addresses entered using Google Forms are correct

How to turn on email-address validation in a Google Forms

What does address validation check

What doesn't it check

What happens when someone enters an email address that doesn't conform to the rules.

Transferring ownership of a Google Sheets file

How to make someone else the owner of a spreadsheet file

What happens after your transfer ownership in this way

Acknowledgements

How to name a column (or row) in a Google Spreadsheet

Option 1 - Type in the name

Option 2 - Use the Range Naming tool

Examples

Versions

Give someone else access to a Google Spreadsheet that you have created

How to to give a specific person rights to a Google Spreadsheet that you own:

What happens next

What does the person you shared the file with see

What do you see

Giving permission to sheets within a spreadsheet.

Adding values in one column, based on another one, using the SUMIF function

How to add values together

How to conditionally add values together

Extra for Experts

New tool for using Google Sheets on your smartphone or tablet

The Sheets app vs the Drive app

How to combine a cell value and a text-string

What's the difference between "&" CONCAT and CONCATENATE?

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How to refer to a range in another sheet

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How to find the difference between two time values

Troubleshooting

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Why date calculations sometimes need to have +1 added to them: whole vs partial days

Option 1: Add one to the results

Option 2: Add times to the date values

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How to show the difference between two dates

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Understanding Google Sheets, Spreadsheets and Worksheets

What is a spreadsheet?

Spreadsheet files vs Speadsheet programs

Spreadsheets vs Sheets / Worksheets

How to combine a range of values into one cell, with a character in between them

Extra for Experts

Where to get help with Google Sheets

Google's Getting started guide:

Google's own help pages for sheets

The Google Docs product forum:

StackExchange Webapps GoogleSheets category

Excel Help Forum

What other help sites have you found?

Leave a comment below, and I'll add them to the list.