Orbit Sheets
Orbit Sheets is Quazzar’s built-in spreadsheet app. It opens from the Orbit category of the app dock. Sheets read and write .xlsx natively via SheetJS, support 80 formula functions across the common Excel families, and render five chart types on a live canvas.
Range selection, fill handle, and the first 20 formulas are free. Formulas 21-80, pie/area/scatter charts, pivot tables, CRDT collaboration, and XLSX export are Orbit Pro features. See Orbit Pro.
Range selection
Selection is an anchor / focus pair. Type always lands on the focus; both are broadcast through Yjs awareness so collaborators see remote selections.
Mouse
| Gesture | Effect |
|---|---|
| Click a cell | New single-cell selection (anchor = focus = cell) |
| Click + drag | Extend the selection as the pointer moves |
| Shift-click | Keep the existing anchor, move focus to the clicked cell |
| Click a column header | Select the entire column |
| Click a row header | Select the entire row |
| Click the corner (top-left) header | Select the whole sheet |
Keyboard
| Shortcut | Effect |
|---|---|
| Arrow keys | Move focus one cell; selection collapses |
| Shift + Arrow | Extend focus one cell; anchor stays put |
Ctrl / Cmd + A | Select every non-empty cell (entire sheet if empty) |
Enter / F2 | Open inline cell editor on the focus |
| Any printable key | Start editing the focus cell with that character |
Delete and Backspace
Pressing Delete or Backspace while a range is selected (and the inline editor is closed) clears every cell in the range. Writes flow through the model as a single transaction, so one Undo rolls back the whole clear atomically.
Fill handle
The bottom-right corner of the current selection sprouts an 8 x 8 cyan handle. Drag it to extend:
- Down or right — append cells after the source.
- Up or left — prepend cells before the source.
- A dashed outline previews the new cells while you drag.
The fill engine inspects the source cells one line at a time (one per column when filling down, one per row when filling right) and picks the right extrapolation:
| Source | Example | Fill result |
|---|---|---|
| Single numeric | 42 | Repeats 42, 42, 42, ... |
| Two numbers | 1, 3 | Linear: 5, 7, 9, ... |
| Descending numbers | 10, 7 | 4, 1, -2, ... |
| Single date | 2025-01-31 | 2025-02-01, 2025-02-02, ... |
| Two dates | 2025-01-01, 2025-01-08 | 2025-01-15, 2025-01-22, ... (7-day step) |
| Weekday | Monday, Tuesday | Wednesday, Thursday, ... (case preserved) |
| Month | Jan, Feb | Mar, Apr, ... (abbreviation preserved) |
| Prefix + int | Item 1, Item 2 | Item 3, Item 4, ... |
| Plain text | hello, world | Cycles: hello, world, hello, ... |
| Formula | =A1+1 | Relative refs offset by target’s (dRow, dCol); $ anchors stay put |
Formula offset rules
Formula fill follows Excel / Sheets conventions:
=A1+1filled one row down becomes=A2+1.=$A$1+B1filled down becomes=$A$1+B2(absolute pinned, relative shifted).=$A1+A$1filled to (2, 3) becomes=$A3+D$1(column absolute keeps column, row absolute keeps row).- Negative offsets that would take a ref above row 1 or left of column A clamp to A1.
- Cross-sheet refs (
Sheet2!A1) are rewritten but keep their sheet qualifier.
Formulas
Orbit Sheets evaluates formulas client-side against an in-memory model, so edits feel instant even on large books. The function library is compatible with Excel:
- Community plan — the first 20 functions (
SUM,AVERAGE,MIN,MAX,COUNT,COUNTA,IF,AND,OR,NOT,ROUND,ABS,SQRT,POWER,CONCAT,LEN,UPPER,LOWER,TRIM,NOW). - Orbit Pro — the full library of 80 (lookups
VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP/INDEX/MATCH, textSUBSTITUTE/REGEXREPLACE, date arithmeticEDATE/NETWORKDAYS, financialPMT/NPV/IRR, and all array functions).
The server rejects saves containing gated formulas on the Community plan with HTTP 402 Payment Required. The upgrade dialog appears inline so you can lift the gate without losing your edit.
Charts
Click Insert -> Chart and pick a range. Orbit Sheets renders charts on the canvas in real time.
| Chart type | Plan |
|---|---|
| Bar | Community |
| Line | Community |
| Pie | Orbit Pro |
| Area | Orbit Pro |
| Scatter | Orbit Pro |
Charts live in the workbook next to the data. Double-click a chart to adjust labels, axes, and colours.
Filters
Click a column header and choose Filter. Filters work on the header row of any contiguous range:
- Text filters: contains / equals / starts-with / ends-with
- Number filters:
=,<,>, between - Top-N filters: top 10 / bottom 5 / custom N
Rows that fail every active filter are hidden but remain in the model — formulas still reference them.
Pivot tables (Orbit Pro)
Pivot tables summarise large tables by dimension and measure.
- Select the source range.
- Click Insert -> Pivot table.
- Drag columns into Rows, Columns, Values, Filters.
- The pivot renders as a new sheet in the workbook.
Pivots are gated behind Orbit Pro. The server rejects pivot-bearing saves with HTTP 402 on Community.
Real-time collaboration (Orbit Pro)
Open a workbook with ?collab=1 to enable CRDT collaboration. Peers see:
- Remote selections and cursors with user colours
- Character-level cell-edit sync without conflicts
- Chart and pivot changes propagated in real time
The Community plan rejects the WebSocket upgrade with HTTP 402; the workbook still opens locally for a single user.
XLSX interop
Orbit Sheets reads and writes .xlsx via SheetJS. Supported on import:
- Cell values, formulas, formats
- Multiple sheets
- Named ranges (treated as global)
- Merged cells
XLSX export is gated behind Orbit Pro. Community users can still export CSV for a single sheet.
Share links
Share -> Create link publishes a read-only public URL for a workbook.
- Community plan: 3 active share links across all Orbit apps.
- Orbit Pro: unlimited share links.
Version history
Orbit Sheets auto-checkpoints every few minutes. The File -> Version history pane lists every checkpoint; clicking one opens the workbook at that point.
| Plan | History window |
|---|---|
| Community | 24 hours |
| Orbit Pro | 90 days |
| Business | 180 days |
| Enterprise | 365 days |
Troubleshooting
Save fails with HTTP 402
Your workbook uses a gated feature on Community (pivot, chart type, or formula >= 21). The upgrade dialog opens automatically — either upgrade or remove the gated cell.
Fill extrapolation repeats instead of extending
You have a single source cell. The fill engine only extrapolates linear / date / weekday / month series when it has at least two samples. Select two cells and drag from there.
Collaborator cursor appears stuck
Check the ?collab=1 URL parameter is present on both clients. Without it the workbook opens single-user and awareness packets are dropped.
Related pages
- Orbit Docs — the document companion
- Orbit Pro — tier matrix