May 2020 Newsletter#

Quick Tips#

  • Copy as Template. Want to use your carefully crafted document with all new data? Click the “Share” menu on top (), and select “Copy as Template”1. The copy will have all the structure, formulas, and layouts, but none of the data.

  • Link to a specific cell. Select a cell and press A (Mac) or Ctrl + Shift + A (Windows). Share the copied link to have your recipient open your document to the same selected cell. More here.

What’s New#

Grist is being constantly improved. Here are some of the more recent changes:

  • New Grist documents have better-looking URLs, and include the document title. Now when you see a Grist link, it’s easy to remember which document it’s for.

  • Reference columns now offer a more helpful auto-complete. To set a Reference value, start to type, and see suggestions from the linked table ranked by best match.

  • Charts have a new “Log Scale Y-axis” option, to show data on a log scale, which is important in many data science applications.

  • Super-user? If you are itching to hack, there is now an experimental way to add your very own components to Grist. See Custom page widget for more.

Grist @ New York Tech Meetup#

We presented a nice demo at the NY Tech Meetup back in February. We finally have a video of our demo and Q&A to share with you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2RlRGRnr9Q

Learning Grist#

  • Get started quickly with basic Grist concepts by watching this playlist of a few very short introductory videos: Grist Video Series

  • Each of our featured Examples & Templates has a related tutorial that shows step-by-step how to build it from scratch. Read through one to gain a deeper understanding of how various features play together.

  • Visit our Help Center to find all of the above, along with the full product documentation.

  • Questions or suggestions? Click Give Feedback link near the bottom left in the Grist application, or simply email support@getgrist.com.


  1. After the July 2020 update, select “Duplicate Document”, and mark the “As Template” checkbox in the dialog that opens. See Copying Documents