Most feasibility work does not start from a blank sheet. It starts from an acquisition model someone already built in Excel. Spreadsheet reads that file directly, formulas included.
Importing an .xlsx workbook
Click File ▾ in the toolbar.
Click Import a workbook…
Choose an
.xlsxfile from your computer.
Every worksheet in the file comes in, one tab each, in the file's own order and under its own names. Values, formulas, number formats, dates, bold, italic, alignment, colour, fill, borders, column widths, row heights, hidden rows and columns, and frozen panes all come across.
Formulas stay formulas, which is most of the reason to import a model at all. A formula Spreadsheet cannot evaluate falls back to the value Excel had already calculated for it, so nothing shows a blank or an error where a number used to be.
Merged cells, hidden sheets, charts, images, pivot tables and conditional formatting do not come across. Spreadsheet tells you what it dropped after the import finishes, rather than dropping it silently.
The older .xls format is not supported
Spreadsheet reads .xlsx, not the older .xls format. If you try to import an .xls file, Spreadsheet recognises it and tells you so. Open it in Excel or Google Sheets and use Save As to save it as .xlsx, then import that file instead.
Copying and pasting with Excel and Google Sheets
Copy and paste works in both directions between Spreadsheet and Excel or Google Sheets, using the same format both of those apps already use.
Pasting in: a block copied from Excel or Sheets arrives with its values and the formats they imply.
21,153becomes the number 21153,$8,685becomes 8685 formatted as currency,15%becomes 0.15 formatted as a percentage, and2026-03-01becomes a real date. Formulas do not carry across this way. Excel and Sheets put values on the clipboard, not formulas, so that is what arrives.Copying out: Spreadsheet puts the displayed text on the clipboard, so a date column pastes into Excel as a date rather than as a raw number, and a currency column pastes in as currency.
Copying and pasting within Spreadsheet itself keeps everything: formulas keep their relative references, and number format, bold, colours and borders travel with the cells.
See Units in Spreadsheet for how an imported workbook's numbers line up with your project's metric or imperial setting.