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Quip to Coda: What to expect

6 transitions to understand as you make the move between tools.

Quip and Coda may look similar at first, but their capabilities differ beneath the surface. Quip is centered around collaborative documents. Coda builds on that familiar doc experience and extends it to support more structured and connected work, bringing writing, data, and workflows together in a single place that teams can use day-to-day. This guide is a quick orientation to the biggest shifts you’ll notice when moving from Quip to Coda. It’s not a step-by-step migration checklist or a setup guide. Instead, it’ll help you map what you already know in Quip to how Coda works.
What you have in Quip …
  • Folders and files
  • @ command
  • Separate, disconnected tables
  • Spreadsheets
  • Spreadsheet language
  • Tables
  • Live apps
buttons
What you’ll have in Coda …
  • Docs and pages
  • / command
  • Connected table views
  • Tables
  • Coda formula language
  • Grids
  • Packs

1. Folders and files to docs and pages

 In Quip, work is organized into folders and files. Each document or spreadsheet lives on its own, even if it sits next to related content in the same folder. Over time, this can make it harder to see how pieces of work relate to one another, especially as the number of docs grows. In Coda, related work lives together inside a single doc that you can organize into pages and subpages. Instead of creating a new file for each document or spreadsheet as you would in Quip, you simply add pages to a Coda doc. This makes it easier to group plans, notes, trackers, and references in one place and navigate them through a built-in page hierarchy.
Tip: Get to know your way around docs with this guide: Navigating a Coda doc.

2. Spreadsheets to tables and grids

 Quip lets you create spreadsheets as standalone files or as building blocks in a document. They’re useful for working with structured data, but they often end up isolated from the rest of your work, with similar information duplicated across multiple spreadsheets. Coda takes a different approach. Instead of traditional spreadsheets, Coda is built around tables that live directly inside your doc. Tables are robust relational databases with powerful features such as column-level formulas, advanced formatting options, automations, visualization capabilities, and views, unlocking better ways to support your work. When you import spreadsheets or tables from Quip, they arrive in Coda as grids. Grids are layout elements that preserve your existing structure and context. This helps you pick up where you left off without needing to restructure anything immediately. From there, you can decide how that data should evolve. Grids work well when you simply need to display information, while tables unlock Coda’s full capabilities. And you can easily convert a grid to a table with a couple of clicks. You’ll use tables to solve every use case you once managed with spreadsheets, and then some.
Tip: To learn more about tables, check out this guide: Getting started with tables in Coda.

3. Disconnected blocks to connected views

 While Quip includes multiple ways to visualize structured data (e.g., table, calendar, Kanban), each of these blocks is disconnected from the others. This means that if you make an update in one place, you’ll need to manually make the change everywhere else, too. In contrast, you can create multiple views of the same data in Coda. You can interact with the same data as a table, board, calendar, chart, or timeline view, without creating duplicates. When something changes in one view, it updates everywhere that data appears. Even Coda’s many data visualization options update in real time, so charts, word clouds, timelines, and other views always reflect the freshest information. The result is less manual maintenance and greater confidence that everyone is viewing the same up-to-date information.
Text editing also gets an upgrade in Coda, both within a table and on the doc canvas. Coda offers both block and line-level editing, meaning you can move entire blocks of text, tables, and more around your doc by dragging and dropping the three dots to the left of each paragraph (instead of painstakingly copy/pasting in Quip). When it comes to writing on the canvas or in a table, Coda supports more than plain text. Choose to display your text as headers, bulleted lists, checklists, callouts, code blocks, quotes, and more. These paragraph styles allow you to organize your content, add emphasis and clarity, and design beautiful docs. To access Coda’s text formatting menu, click “Command” on your Mac or highlight any text. The menu bar will appear above your cursor.
Tip: Learn more about editing and formatting text in this article.

4. Spreadsheet formulas to the Coda formula language

 Quip’s formula language is based on traditional spreadsheet formats like those in Excel or Google Sheets and covers most, but not all, of their functionality. Coda, however, has a powerful formula language. Simply typing = in your Coda doc allows you to use this formula language to do everything from calculating columns in a table to summarizing data to customizing automations. If you’re spreadsheet- or SQL-savvy, you’ll find the formula language very familiar. And if you don’t want to touch Excel with a ten-foot pole, don’t worry. Coda formulas are much more accessible than you might think, and knowing just a few goes a long way.
The shift is less about writing more complex formulas and more about writing fewer formulas that do more of the work for you. And to learn more broadly about Coda’s formula language, take a look at the Coda Essentials video below.

5. Live Apps to Coda Packs

 Quip offers a small set of native integrations, called Live Apps, available in the Salesforce App Exchange. While useful, these integrations are limited in scope, with only a few delivering deeper capabilities. Coda, on the other hand, has a marketplace of extensions and integrations called Packs available in the Coda Gallery, including Salesforce, Jira, and more. Packs let you bring data from external applications into Coda as sync tables so you can analyze, visualize, and take action on your data in one place. Some Packs also include two-way sync, so you can make changes in your doc and have them reflected in the app, and vice versa. Tip: To learn more about Packs, check out Overview: Use Packs.
Keep context close to work
Beyond data and Pack integrations, Coda helps teams keep context in one place. In addition to embedding links, files, or media, you can embed tools like Miro boards, Figma designs, and other applications directly into a doc. Embeds can live inline or as full pages, depending on your work. The result is less context switching and fewer tabs.

6. From @ to /

 The / key, or slash command, in Coda is similar to the @ symbol in Quip. It’s the primary shortcut for adding many building blocks to your doc, such as tables, buttons, templates, and other interactive elements. The shift is subtle but important. Instead of inserting mostly static blocks, the slash command helps you assemble functional pieces as you work; things that can store data, trigger action, or shape how your doc behaves. Over time, this becomes the fastest way to build and evolve a doc without breaking your flow.

Now what?

 Quip and Coda both support doc-based work, but Coda goes further by connecting writing, data, and workflows in one place. The shifts above can help acquaint you with Coda vs. Quip, but it is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Coda’s capabilities. If you’re planning a full migration or want detailed guidance on what imports, what needs follow-up, and how to avoid surprises, the step-by-step Migrating from Quip to Coda guide will take you through the process in detail. In the meantime, check out some of our other great resources:
  • Coda 101 is our intro course for building a foundation in Coda.
  • Take a look around the Coda Gallery to discover scenarios, use cases, and best practices you can borrow from some of the world’s leading teams.
Enterprise teams
If you’re an enterprise customer, talk to your account rep about how we can support your migration.

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