What TableDI is, and what it does for you
Three minutes to place it. TableDI is a spreadsheet tool that installs on your own computer: data comes in, gets cleaned, and goes out as reports — all in one window. There is exactly one root difference from Excel, and after this page you will know whether to keep reading.
In one sentence
TableDI is a spreadsheet tool that runs on your own computer. It looks like a spreadsheet but behaves more like a small data system: it pulls data in from Excel, CSV, images and databases, cleans it and links it with formulas, then turns it into pivots, charts and dashboards.
It is a desktop app for macOS and Windows. Open it and it works — no account, no sign-in, and your data never leaves the machine.
Three jobs, one window
Building a monthly report usually means shuttling data between Excel, a database client and a BI tool. TableDI folds that pipeline into a single window:
| Stage | What TableDI gives you |
|---|---|
| Data in | Upload Excel / CSV, paste, image-to-table (invoices, receipts), JSON-to-table, and scheduled connections to databases and APIs |
| Clean and calculate | Field formulas (one formula per column, every row calculated), formula panels (Sumif, Match, Split, Merge, if — point and click), deduplication, date splitting. AI processing is a paid capability and needs your own API key |
| Data out | A dozen view types (worksheet, pivot, bar and line, pie, funnel…), dashboards, Excel / CSV export, a data API |
None of it needs code. Where a formula is needed, a panel writes it for you — and the formula it writes stays visible and editable.
The root difference from Excel
There is only one, but it decides everything that follows:
Excel is a canvas. TableDI is a database table. In Excel every cell is its own island and a formula belongs to a cell. In TableDI each column is one kind of data and each row is one record, so a formula belongs to the column — write it once and it holds for every row, including the three hundred rows you paste in next month.
What that buys you is linked tables: change one number in the detail table and the summary table and the dashboard follow, with no dragging formulas down and no rebuilding pivot tables. What it costs you is learning to think in columns — Core concepts is the chapter about that.
Personal edition and team edition
| Personal (desktop) | Team (SaaS, in the browser) | |
|---|---|---|
| How it runs | Installed on your computer, works offline | Sign in through a browser, runs in the cloud |
| Account | None. Zero sign-in | Email registration, with workspaces and members |
| Where the data is | Your local disk | The cloud (private deployment available) |
| Suits | One person doing data, reconciliation, reports | Several people collaborating, permissions, shared dashboards |
This manual follows the personal desktop edition. Tables, formulas, views and dashboards are the same engine in both; the members, permissions and sharing that only the team edition has are in the Team edition chapter.
How far the free version goes
The free personal edition has no time limit and no cap on rows, tables or imports. It draws one line, and it draws it at the exit:
- Free: Excel / CSV export is capped at the first 1,000 rows per table; one dashboard; AI (every entry point), automations and API-out are locked.
- Paid: all of it unlocked.
Your full data can be packed up and carried away at any time, on the free plan too — see Free vs paid.
What it is not
- Not an online collaborative spreadsheet. The personal edition has no simultaneous multi-user editing; use the team edition for that.
- Not a replacement for Excel. For layout, printing and cell-level fiddling, Excel is the better tool. TableDI is for the work where the same batch of data has to be calculated, joined and looked at over and over.
- Not something that needs SQL or code. Though if you can write an Excel formula, the formulas here will look familiar.
Next
- Download, install and first launch — three minutes.
- Ten minutes in: walk through the sample — bring no files; the bundled sample covers every important idea.