Originally downloaded 3/6/06. I had downloaded a version of Mesa last year, but the user interface was so friggin’ ugly, I couldn’t bear looking at it. Plus the text in the Excel spreadsheet I opened as a test wasn’t aligned correctly. Imagine my surprise when I decided to give Mesa one more try before closing the books and found that both of those problems have been solved! This native Cocoa app is now reasonably good-looking and imported the Excel spreadsheet like an expert! I decided to keep this on the evaluation list for another go-round.
Update 12/20/06. Still haven’t given Mesa a fair shake, but I’m updating my eval version to the latest, 3.1. Mesa is $34 for a single license.
Update 3/6/07. Mesa’s developer gave me a 30-day full demo license, and after I had a few weeks to really put it through its paces, I came away pleasantly surprised and quite impressed. Mesa’s not without its flaws, but it’s well worth the license and more than adequately handles my heavy-duty spreadsheeting needs. Of all the tools I’ve tried, Mesa is the fastest by far in handling complex sorts on large data sets.
For a full review of Mesa, as well as my thoughts on the other contenders in the Mac OS X spreadsheet market today, see my March 2007 article, “Mac OS X Spreadsheet Roundup: A Few Excel, The Rest Should Be Shot.”
Version as tested: 3.1.
