Google Sheets adds a one-click way to easily create tables

Google recently introduced a new table formatting feature in Sheets that made it much easier to create self-contained, sortable blocks of cells within a spreadsheet. But the company didn’t stop there and appears to be quickly updating the software with features that make it faster to install, configure, and view data in a table.

The latest update, which is being rolled out in stages now, builds on the previous addition of table formatting by adding “smart suggestions” that show a “+” button when you select data that can be turned into a table. Clicking the button formats the data with things like alternating colors and sortable, filterable headers. The change extends Google’s table formatting feature from May, which made it easier to quickly add tables to a spreadsheet, making people like me very happy.

Earlier this month, Google I made an update which allow you to quickly add rows by hovering the mouse on the left edge of a table and clicking the “+” button and add columns by hovering the mouse to the right.

At the same time, the company introduced automatic column categories: When you convert data to a table, Sheets determines what format the data in each column should be. For example, currency columns can be formatted so that numbers always have a dollar sign, or date columns can always have two-digit years at the end.

It’s great to see Google making so many improvements to Sheets. Before all this, you would have to manually format the data to turn it into a table, a slow process. But now, selecting a block of data and converting it does things for you, like setting alternating colors and converting column headers so you can sort and filter by the data beneath them. I like spreadsheets as much as the next person, but even I found it all tedious before.