Dump Excel–Switch to OmniOutliner Pro
Sunday, May 27th, 2007
For managing lists, OmniOutliner Pro is the way to go.
Excel is great for managing numeric data, but comes up short when working with lists. Microsoft has a bad habit of trying to cram as many features as possible into a product until it becomes a bloated mess. I prefer more focused and efficient applications that allow me to zero in on my work.
OmniOutliner is such a product. Since the product concentrates on specific functionality, its extremely efficient to work with. Many formating and organizational functions can be applied by simply clicking a checkbox.
Applying styles and text formating in Excel can often be challenging and require numerous menu choices. Even after going through the process your formating may be destroyed by adding or deleting rows or columns. As for outline functionality such as collapsible headings; for get it. Excel’s strength is in numbers and graphs, not text and lists.
OmniOutliner provides a number of easy to use features designed for efficiency.
- Vertical and horizontal gridlines can be turned on or off from a checkbox
- Alternating background colors can be automatically applied to the data rows
- Automatic numbering (legal, letter, numeric, or Roman)
- Selectable column types (pop_up list, checkbox, date, duration, number, rich text)
- Outline data and lists can be combined in a single document
- Data can be sorted though entire document or specific sections
- Sorts can be set to automatic or performed on demand
- Spell checking while typing
- Fields can contain links, attachments, text, or media objects
- With outline functionality, levels can be collapsed to make viewing easier
- Formating styles can be applied to specific row levels or columns
If you already have a list created in Excel and want to move it to Outliner, the program can import the data as a tab delimited text file. Outliner will also import from Keynotes, plain text and RTF.
Data can be exported as plain text, RTF, Keynotes, HTML, and MS Word, or as with most Mac applications; PDF.
I am hooked on the speed and ease of use Outliner Pro provides. I use it for everything from shopping lists, to customer action registers. The time I save managing my data in Outliner over Excel is pretty impressive. You can download and evaluation copy at the Omni Group web site, so give a try; you will be happy you did.
M Nassal 2007
