I tried this out when it was mentioned a few weeks ago[1].

It's pretty neat but does have a number of bugs. The packaged version also doesn't have xls support compiled in (at least on Fedora) which is unfortunate, though building is fairly easy[2].

I love the idea of it though, so I'm really hoping these issues get ironed out! I'm happy to help contribute if maintainers are willing.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47457009

[2] https://github.com/andmarti1424/sc-im/wiki/Building-sc%E2%80...

This could just be a skill or wrong use case thing, but do you only use spreadsheets for pure number-crunching? I've played terminal spreadsheets, mostly sc-im, but I often have some longform text field (like 'Notes') that becomes more fiddly to deal with than a GUI.

Visidata is the only terminal program I've found that handles large text fields in tabular data nicely the way you can drill down into a table row, then Ctrl+O to edit a field in your editor, but it's not a spreadsheet.

But why?

This feels like the kind of domain in particular where the advantages of a GUI provide a superior experience, and once it gets sophisticated enough you'll have basically built one anyway just in the terminal.

I used blocky spreadsheets a few decades ago... Tell me why I want to use them again today?

Legit question - I want to understand the needs I'm overlooking which this thing meets. (Please don't just reply "lack of ribbon/ads/bloat etc", none of that nonsense is required in either flavor).

I think spreadsheets are a greater example of something that require the subtleties of an actual GUI. This is most obvious with the various plots which are hilariously imprecise. But the advantages of GUI are also present when just using the spreadsheet itself, it's ability to convey the skeuomorphic two dimensional space is much greater.

And it's not like the terminal can't be a greater data processing tool, but you have to use different paradigms.

Still from an esthetical perspective I love those simple TUI interfaces. They invoke a weird sense of comfort in me that I can't fully explain.

Related ongoing thread:

Sheets: Terminal based spreadsheet tool - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47636456 - April 2026 (46 comments)

A modern launch of a similar tool: https://github.com/maaslalani/sheets

I love this but with all the advances of TUI frameworks, using C + ncurses feels like such a hard path.

I'd love if this had support for saving as xlsx. Being able to open them is nice, but it would be great if I could collaborate with MS Office users without them ever knowing.

See also visidata for an alternative https://www.visidata.org/

Love vim stye editing

lots of bugs and crashes last time I tried it. Should see if it improved

Insane what people make these days, but its really cool!

I tried this out when it was mentioned a few weeks ago[1].

It's pretty neat but does have a number of bugs. The packaged version also doesn't have xls support compiled in (at least on Fedora) which is unfortunate, though building is fairly easy[2].

I love the idea of it though, so I'm really hoping these issues get ironed out! I'm happy to help contribute if maintainers are willing.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47457009

[2] https://github.com/andmarti1424/sc-im/wiki/Building-sc%E2%80...

NOTE 05/21/2025:

New release v0.8.5 - This project needs your help! This is a one person project and have very little sponsoring. I want to still maintain and develop sc-im, but I am the only income in my family and its becoming difficult to work as much as I would want. If you can make a donation (see at the bottom), please do. Your help would be really appreciated!! Thanks.

sc-im

Spreadsheet Calculator Improvised, aka sc-im, is an ncurses based, vim-like spreadsheet calculator.

sc-im is based on sc, whose original authors are James Gosling and Mark Weiser, and mods were later added by Chuck Martin.

Some of the features of sc-im

Vim movements commands for editing cell content.
UNDO / REDO.
65.536 rows and 702 columns supported. (The number of rows can be expanded to 1.048.576 if wished).
CSV / TAB delimited / XLSX file import and export. ODS import. Markdown export.
Key-mappings.
Autobackup.
Direct color support - specifing the RGB values, screen colors can be customized by user, even at runtime.
Colorize cells or give them format such as bold, italic or underline.
Wide character support. The following alphabets are supported: English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Russian, Ukrainian, Greek, Turkish, Czech, Japanese, Chinese.
Sort of rows.
Filter of rows.
Subtotals.
Cell shifting.
Clipboard support.
GNUPlot interaction.
Scripting support with LUA. Also with triggers and c dynamic linked modules.
Implement external functions in the language you prefer and use them in SC-IM.
Use SC-IM as a non-interactive calculator, reading its input from an external script.

Quick start

Key	Purpose
=	Insert a numeric value
\	Insert a text value
e	Edit a numeric value
E	Edit a string value
x	Delete current cell content
:q	Quit the app
:h	See help
:w filename.sc	Save current spreadsheet in sc format
j	Move down
k	Move up
h	Move left
l	Move right
goab12	go to cell AB12
u	undo last change
C-r	redo last change undone
yy	Copy current cell
v	select a range using cursor/hjkl keys
p	paste a previously yanked cell or range
ir	insert row
ic	insert column
dr	delete row
dc	delete column

Screenshots

demo image

Installation

Dependencies

Requirements:
- ncurses (best if compiled with wide chars support)
- bison or yacc
- gcc
- make
- pkg-config and which (for make to do its job)
Optionals:
- tmux / xclip / pbpaste (for clipboard copy/paste)
- gnuplot (for plots)
- libxlsxreader (for xls support)
- xlsxwriter (for xlsx export support)
- libxml-2.0 and libzip (for xlsx/ods import support)
- lua (for Lua scripting)
- threads support (in case you want to test this in Minix, just disable autobackup and HAVE_PTHREAD)

Manual

Edit src/Makefile according to your system and needs:

    vim src/Makefile

Run make:

    make -C src

Optional: You can install the binary sc-im in your system by typing with a privileged user:

    make -C src install

Building on OS X

You can follow the instructions as above, but if you would like Lua scripting support, you will need to install Lua 5.1, which you can do with,

    brew install lua@5.1

And then follow the instructions as above.

Homebrew for OSX users

brew install sc-im

Ubuntu with XLSX import & export

See this wiki page.

Other distros / OS

Please check wiki pages

Configuration

The scimrc file can be used to configure sc-im. The file should be placed in the ~/.config/sc-im directory.

Here is an example ~/.config/sc-im/scimrc :

set autocalc
set numeric
set numeric_decimal=0
set overlap
set xlsx_readformulas

Other configuration variables are listed in the help file.

Issues and questions

Please open an issue if you find a bug. If you are now sure if its a bug, please take a look at the discussions and/or ask there. If you have a question please check out current discussions and if you still are in doubt, open a discussion as well. If you want to ask for a feature request, the same, check out current discussions. Thank you!

Tutorial

sc-im tutorial

Related projects

vim-scimark - Vim plugin, edit embedded markdown tables with sc-im in vim terminal.

Helping us

Want to help? You can help us with one or more of the following:

giving sc-im a star on GitHub
taking screenshots / creating screencasts showing sc-im
making a donation (see below).
telling if you use it / like it. I really don't have a clue if this app is used by someone.

Donations

If you like sc-im please support its development by making a DONATION with Patreon or PayPal. It would really help a lot.

If you wish to make a donation, please click the above button or just send money to scim.spreadsheet@gmail.com via PayPal, choosing "Goods and Services". or with Patreon.

Thank you!

lots of bugs and crashes last time I tried it. Should see if it improved

Love vim stye editing

See also visidata for an alternative https://www.visidata.org/

Related ongoing thread:

Sheets: Terminal based spreadsheet tool - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47636456 - April 2026 (46 comments)

But originating on Unix in '81, and thus predating Lotus 1-2-3 by ~2 years.

Insane what people make these days, but its really cool!

These days? There was a time before graphical user interfaces existed/were possible.

1979: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc

A modern launch of a similar tool: https://github.com/maaslalani/sheets

That one is being discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47636456 - OP looks to have been a follow-up (which is great in principle but we downweight them for reasons described at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...)

I'd love if this had support for saving as xlsx. Being able to open them is nice, but it would be great if I could collaborate with MS Office users without them ever knowing.

It does. It's not compiled in to the package repos though, so you might have to build it yourself[1]. It's also a bit buggy currently.

[1]: https://github.com/andmarti1424/sc-im/wiki/Building-sc%E2%80...

And it's not like the terminal can't be a greater data processing tool, but you have to use different paradigms.

Still from an esthetical perspective I love those simple TUI interfaces. They invoke a weird sense of comfort in me that I can't fully explain.

Lol, young padawan, check up those weird old programs that were called "VisiCalc" and "Lotus 1-2-3".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_1-2-3

> I think spreadsheets are a greater example of something that require the subtleties of an actual GUI

I've been wondering about this too. I think a great TUI could get it done though, but it remains to be seen how it could really stack up. If I didn't have so many projects already, I'd give this a shot because I would really love a "vim" for spreadsheets

The first spreadsheets I remember were TUI (pccalc, Lotus 123)

I love this but with all the advances of TUI frameworks, using C + ncurses feels like such a hard path.

It's a tool with a long vintage, and it wouldn't make sense to port it to a different language just to take advantage of the likes of bubbletea or textual.

Cool which newer TUI frameworks do you prefer?

But why?

I used blocky spreadsheets a few decades ago... Tell me why I want to use them again today?

Legit question - I want to understand the needs I'm overlooking which this thing meets. (Please don't just reply "lack of ribbon/ads/bloat etc", none of that nonsense is required in either flavor).

The blocky spreadsheets of yesteryear could run in a few kilobytes of RAM. Today, that's microcontroller territory. From there, I can contrive a few answers:

- A spreadsheet that runs in a RISC-V+Core-V device is less susceptible to supply-chain issues and geopolitical stresses.

- Price. The hardware needed to run a text-only spreadsheet is worth about 10 bucks or less.

- Energy consumption. Now the server with your business data can run deep within energy-starved communist Cuba...probably.

- Better security. Plenty of people and armies get nervous about keeping tallies of dangerous toys in computers with lots of ICs and closed-source blobs made in enemy territory. Just enumerating all those ICs and blobs in a conventional laptop or tablet is difficult.

- Size. A smaller, cooler chip is easier to hide, which matters if you spent your trip to the motherland working on something you don't want customs to find out. In that case, you can use your laptop as a terminal to the sensitive data in your server running inside a button of your jacket...