Examples

Practical, self-contained examples demonstrating real-world usage of VimSheet.

Expense Tracker

Create a monthly expense tracker with conditional formatting:

# Enter headers
A1: Category    B1: Budget    C1: Actual    D1: Variance

# Enter data
A2: Rent        B2: 1500       C2: 1500
A3: Food        B3: 600        C3: 650
A4: Transport   B4: 200        C4: 180
A5: Utilities   B5: 300        C5: 320
A6: Total       B6: =SUM(B2:B5) C6: =SUM(C2:C5)

# Variance column
D2: =C2-B2
D3: =C3-B3
D4: =C4-B4
D5: =C5-B5
D6: =C6-B6

# Conditional formatting: highlight overspend in red
:cond D2:D6 gt 0 color #ff0000 bold

# Format as currency
:format B2 bold
:format C2 bold

# Save
:w expenses.vimsheet

Grade Calculator

Calculate student grades with letter assignment:

A1: Student  B1: Score   C1: Grade

A2: Alice    B2: 92
A3: Bob      B3: 78
A4: Carol    B4: 85
A5: Dave     B5: 63
A6: Eve      B6: 95

C2: =IF(B2>=90, "A", IF(B2>=80, "B", IF(B2>=70, "C", IF(B2>=60, "D", "F"))))

Fill the grade formula down:

# Yank C2, select C3:C6, paste
yy (on C2)
j  (move to C3)
v  (enter visual mode)
jjj (select down to C6)
p  (paste formula)

Or use the fill command after selecting the range in visual mode:

:C3:C6 fill =IF(B3>=90,"A",IF(B3>=80,"B",IF(B3>=70,"C",IF(B3>=60,"D","F"))))

# Show summary
A8: Average   B8: =AVERAGE(B2:B6)
A9: Max       B9: =MAX(B2:B6)
A10: Min      B10: =MIN(B2:B6)
A11: Count    B11: =COUNT(B2:B6)

:sort C            Sort by grade ascending
:sort B desc       Sort by score descending

Sales Data Analysis with VLOOKUP

Analyze sales data with product lookup:

# Sheet1: Sales Transactions
A1: Date       B1: Product   C1: Qty   D1: Price
A2: 2026-01-05 B2: P001      C2: 10
A3: 2026-01-06 B3: P003      C3: 5
A4: 2026-01-07 B4: P002      C4: 8

# Sheet2: Product Catalog
:addsheet Catalog
A1: Code    B1: Name       C1: Unit Price
A2: P001    B2: Widget A   C2: 19.99
A3: P002    B3: Widget B   C3: 29.99
A4: P003    B4: Widget C   C4: 14.99

# Sheet1: Lookup prices and compute total
:sheet Sheet1
D2: =VLOOKUP(B2, Catalog!A1:C4, 3, FALSE)
D3: =VLOOKUP(B3, Catalog!A1:C4, 3, FALSE)
D4: =VLOOKUP(B4, Catalog!A1:C4, 3, FALSE)

E1: Total
E2: =C2*D2      E3: =C3*D3      E4: =C4*D4
E6: =SUM(E2:E4)

Budget vs Actual Dashboard

Multi-sheet workbook for monthly budget tracking:

# --- Sheet: Budget ---
:renamesheet Budget
A1: Item       B1: Jan    C1: Feb    D1: Mar
A2: Rent       B2: 1500   C2: 1500   D2: 1500
A3: Food       B3: 600    C3: 600    C3: 600
A4: Transport  B4: 200    B4: 200    B4: 200

# --- Sheet: Actuals ---
:addsheet Actuals
A1: Item       B1: Jan    C1: Feb    D1: Mar
A2: Rent       B2: 1500   C2: 1500   D2: 1550
A3: Food       B3: 580    C3: 620    C3: 590
A4: Transport  B4: 180    B4: 210    B4: 195

# --- Sheet: Dashboard ---
:addsheet Dashboard
A1: Item       B1: Jan    C1: Feb    D1: Mar
A2: Rent       B2: =Actuals!B2-Budget!B2
A3: Food       B3: =Actuals!B3-Budget!B3
A4: Transport  B4: =Actuals!B4-Budget!B4

A6: Surplus    B6: =SUM(B2:B4)

# Highlight negative variances
:cond B2:D4 lt 0 color #ff0000 bg #ffcccc

# Save as native format to preserve formulas
:w budget.vimsheet

Data Cleaning with Text Functions

Clean and standardize messy data:

A1: Raw Data     B1: Cleaned
A2: "  john   "  B2: =TRIM(PROPER(A2))
A3: "ALICE"      B3: =TRIM(PROPER(A3))
A4: "  bob  "    B4: =TRIM(PROPER(A4))
A5: "CAROL  "    B5: =TRIM(PROPER(A5))

# Extract parts from formatted strings
D1: Full Name    E1: First     F1: Last
D2: "Smith, John"
E2: =TRIM(MID(D2, FIND(",", D2)+1, 99))   → "John"
F2: =LEFT(D2, FIND(",", D2)-1)             → "Smith"

External Scripting with Python

Process spreadsheet data with an external Python script:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
"""double.py — doubles all numeric values in a selected range.
Usage: Select a range in VimSheet, press :!./double.py"""
import sys, json

for line in sys.stdin:
    msg = json.loads(line.strip())
    if msg.get("type") == "request":
        method = msg["method"]
        params = msg.get("params", {})
        if method == "get_range":
            data = json.loads(sys.stdin.readline())
            doubled = [[c * 2 if isinstance(c, (int, float)) else c for c in row] for row in data]
            response = {"type": "response", "id": msg["id"], "result": doubled}
            sys.stdout.write(json.dumps(response) + "\n")
            sys.stdout.flush()

Run it from VimSheet:

# Select a range in visual mode, then:
:!./double.py

Fetch Live API Data

Use @FETCH to pull live data into your spreadsheet:

# Weather data (refreshed every 5 minutes)
A1: =FETCH("https://api.open-meteo.com/v1/forecast?latitude=52.52&longitude=13.41&current_weather=true", 300, "$.current_weather.temperature")
B1: =FETCH("https://api.open-meteo.com/v1/forecast?latitude=52.52&longitude=13.41&current_weather=true", 300, "$.current_weather.windspeed")
C1: =FETCH("https://api.open-meteo.com/v1/forecast?latitude=52.52&longitude=13.41&current_weather=true", 300, "$.current_weather.weathercode")

# View all active fetches
:fetchlist

# Force immediate refresh
:fetchnow

Recording and Playing Macros

Automate repetitive formatting:

# Goal: Bold the first column and italicize the second
# Record macro to register 'a':
qa       Start recording
fb       Toggle bold
l        Move right
fi       Toggle italic
j        Move down
0        Move to start of row
q        Stop recording

# Play it 10 times:
10@a

# Or repeat last macro:
@@

Pipeline Batch Conversion

Convert all CSV files in a directory to XLSX:

$ for f in *.csv; do
    cat > /tmp/convert.vsheet << EOF
open $f
save ${f%.csv}.xlsx
EOF
    vimsheet --nocurses --script /tmp/convert.vsheet
  done

Or use a single formula pipeline to compute statistics:

$ cat sales.csv | vimsheet --nocurses "=SUM(B:B)"
$ cat sales.csv | vimsheet --nocurses "=AVERAGE(B:B)"
$ cat sales.csv | vimsheet --nocurses "=MAX(B:B) & \", \" & MIN(B:B)"

Diff Two Spreadsheets

Side-by-side comparison of two workbooks:

$ vimsheet --diff original.xlsx updated.xlsx

# Cells with differences are highlighted with their old and new values