
Show HN: Publisheet – Publish Excel sheets as interactive web pages - tiagoalves
https://www.publisheet.com
======
davidpolberger
This looks sleek and well-made! However, this is a pretty crowded space.
Spreadsheet Converter
([https://www.spreadsheetconverter.com](https://www.spreadsheetconverter.com))
and Spreadsheet Web
([https://www.spreadsheetweb.com](https://www.spreadsheetweb.com)) are
directly comparable and have been around for years. (Like Publisheet,
Spreadsheet Converter offers an Excel add-in.)

Then there are lots of web app builders, including Calculoid
([https://www.calculoid.com](https://www.calculoid.com)), Calconic
([https://www.calconic.com](https://www.calconic.com)), uCalc Pro
([https://ucalc.pro](https://ucalc.pro)) and Calcapp
([https://www.calcapp.net/lp/website-
calculators/](https://www.calcapp.net/lp/website-calculators/)), that require
more work to get from an Excel sheet to a web app, but get the job done with
an end result that doesn't look like a spreadsheet. How does Publisheet
improve on the competition?

(Full disclosure: I'm a co-founder of Calcapp.)

~~~
tiagoalves
When I started Publisheet, the idea was that it would allow users to create
static, web-based reports from their spreadsheets, including textual
information that would be written as Markdown (with a WYSIWYG editor) directly
in one or more cells. I thought that it would be an easy way to create
complete financial reports, for instance. The landing page's images still
reflect that.

But as soon as it launched, I noticed that no one was using it for text-heavy
reports. People just wanted to publish their spreadsheets online, as is, with
formula support. So, I started focusing on that and ended up in this crowded
space, as you correctly state.

I think that Publisheet's main selling point is that it's really simple to
install and use. There's no .exe to install, there is no need to upload the
Excel file in the browser, there is no form builder. Also, it works on
Windows, Mac and in Excel Online. You basically click Publish and it's done.
But I am aware that all the systems you listed are way more feature-complete
than Publisheet and it is something we'll have to improve.

By the way, congrats on Calcapp, it looks really polished!

~~~
airstrike
> including textual information that would be written as Markdown (with a
> WYSIWYG editor) directly in one or more cells. I thought that it would be an
> easy way to create complete financial reports, for instance. The landing
> page's images still reflect that.

> But as soon as it launched, I noticed that no one was using it for text-
> heavy reports.

I think the issue with that approach is that text-heavy reports don't
perfectly overlap with the web. Speaking for basically all Wall St investment
bankers out there, we spend our days generating reports from Excel into
PowerPoint.

If something existed for Excel + PowerPoint that worked similarly to RMarkdown
+ Rstudio > PDF, I think it would be a game changer, even if only used to
generate a few of the more "automated" reports.

There you go, free killer business idea for you ;-)

~~~
Digitalgrub
> If something existed for Excel + PowerPoint...

Isn't that SlideShare you're asking for? If not can you explain more please?

~~~
airstrike
I'm not familiar with SlideShare, but from Wikipedia that seems to focus on
sharing presentations rather than building them.

Here's what I mean, specifically: advisory work done by the big consulting
companies and Wall Street M&A shops usually consists of lots and lots of Excel
files being carefully massaged to create certain outputs that are then dropped
in as images into PowerPoint with some text around them, mostly following the
exact same formatting guidelines, which are then printed, bound and shown to
clients.

Currently, you have to train people to not only know how to come up with the
data (i.e. corporate finance, accounting, management consulting) but also
teach them how to use powerpoint, think about formatting, make sure they
memorize the right color palette, etc. Sometimes formatting alone is 50% of
the work – your boss will always tell "you used the wrong shade of blue"...

A lot of these pages are the exact same across assignments. One example is a
standard page with valuation multiples over time, comparing client company
against a set of peers and/or the S&P500. Or a stock price performance chart.

Annoyingly, you have to set up pages manually virtually _every_ time, and
there's no separation between presentation and content.

With RMarkdown + RStudio, you can write Markdown code and embed images into
your resulting PDF. Banking / Consulting is doing the same thing, except using
PowerPoint. But PowerPoint is a slideshow app, not a PDF authoring tool.

My hypothesis: creating a PDF authoring tool that embeds data from Excel /
other sources with formatting kept separate (think a separate CSS file) would
be a game changer and revolutionize the industry (though admittedly Wall
Street hates changes and convincing people to use this would be an uphill
battle)

------
slowmotiony
This is amazing, but there is no way that my firm will send any excels with
our data to a relatively small and unknown third-party provider who will host
it on a public URL. Are you thinking about allowing users to run this on-site?

~~~
smt88
I was about to say the same. I'd pay for a license to use a self-hosted
version.

~~~
tyingq
Sheetjs.com seems in the same space and you can self host.

~~~
lucasverra
you need a dev to make that work. I guess OP value is "no dev needed"

~~~
tyingq
That's true, though the things in the demos directory would simplify that.

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nailer
I'm surprised MS Office development seems to have just...stopped.

Powerpoint can't import an SVG (it turns it into a low res raster image).
Powerpoint can't export SVG either, if I want to use a Powerpoint diagram in a
web page. I opened a JSON file in Excel expecting to see nested values and
nope, it doesn't support that file format. Office isn't even available in the
Windows app store.

When Microsoft's going full steam ahead with stuff like Terminal, VSCode,
OneDrive, Edgium, etc Office seems to be stuck in 2005.

~~~
smt88
Has it stopped, or are you maybe not the target/average user?

Most Office users have no idea what SVG or JSON files are or why they'd use
them.

My experience is that Office has prioritized usability and automating tedious
tasks, like theming, creating charts, and linking data back and forth.

Every major version over the last 15 years has made some large usability
improvements (e.g. format painter), but perhaps you'd only notice them if
you're using the applications in certain ways. I've noticed them and feel like
I'm stuck in molasses whenever I have to use an older version of Office.

~~~
nailer
A lot of people who work with data use Excel and JSON. Not most Excel users,
but about as many as who know what VLOOKUP is.

~~~
smt88
Excel is huge in finance, accounting, and marketing. I don't know why anyone
in those fields would routinely use JSON files.

If there's JSON somewhere that's relevant, a dev will usually just change
output to CSV or something.

~~~
nailer
You don't know people in finance who use JSON? Have you heard of R, SciPy or
NumPy?

Additionally data science / stats folk use JSON and Excel too.

------
andreyazimov
Nice! Using spreadsheets as a DB are trend now. Also Spreadsheets are pretty
good CMS as well, so people can use it to create websites without code. I made
an app called [https://Sheet2Site.com](https://Sheet2Site.com) which takes
your Google Sheet of items/objects and translates it into an app, with filters
and images

~~~
dspillett
_> Using spreadsheets as a DB are trend now._

Not just a trend now, it has been a pattern for many years: if you worked
in/with/for many office environments you'll be exposed to a great many
"database" uses of Excel & similar and you will find features specific to such
uses in spreadsheet products. Some businesses, including large investment
banks, would completely grind to a halt if Excel stopped working!

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igammarays
Very cleanly done - though I really doubt this needs to be a subscription. I'm
gonna keep this in my notes - it may come in handy someday for a one-off
report or presentation, for which I would gladly plunk down a few bucks.

------
mkirsten
Check out Molnify www.molnify.com that both have support for formulas, and
allows you to publish them as APIs (disclaimer: I built it)

------
Seahawkshacker
Why not just share or publish a locked Google sheet?

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boldslogan
Really nice, tried with a chart and worked smoothly.

Just for fun: would be nice to know max publishing - I just tried 1k * 30
columns and it errored out. I wanted to see how I could interact with a large
chart of data.

~~~
tiagoalves
Yeah, we haven't defined a limit yet but letting it error out is definitely
not acceptable. We'll fix it, thanks for the feedback.

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mac_was
This looks really nice but I'd like to see a more complex example with several
complex functions and updating at least 500 fields at the same time. Then we
see how fast it is...

~~~
seektable
in case of complex functions / many fields it is more logical to use a
database and BI tool that displays/visualizes data from this database as a
report.

~~~
mac_was
If the tool has limitation it should say somewhere, before someone spends time
building a complex example and finds out it crashes the browser.

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sgarrity
Cool idea. I like how focused it is. I'd love to be able to see an example
without signing up though.

~~~
tiagoalves
Haven't gotten around updating the landing page yet but here is an example:
[https://www.publisheet.com/demos/quotation-
demo](https://www.publisheet.com/demos/quotation-demo).

Just tap the screen or move your mouse over the page and you'll see which
cells are editable.

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webwanderings
Not necessarily exactly like this but Google Sheet does web publishing of
sheets.

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abdhass
Any chance of a Google Sheets version?

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donclark
Could this be done via a Google sheet?

~~~
patrickbolle
Andrey Azimov built a very similar app for Google Sheets -
[https://www.sheet2site.com](https://www.sheet2site.com)

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vaibhav228
Cool idea! Clean and simple UI.

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dlphn___xyz
what use case would this serve?

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efa
That was my question. Any type of shared spreadsheet I always use Google.

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mikeintosh
Love your logo!

~~~
Bishonen88
Is this the OP posting? Out of everything on the page, the logo is possibly
the worst part of it (a 'P' in a circle). And this made you create an account
and then post here?

