Add me as a vote for excel spreadsheet. Several times I thought about going with LogBook Pro or one of the competitors but I always balked at the price and the fact that you never know how long those companies may last. I know LogBook Pro has been around a long time now, but it's still impossible to know if they'll still be there 30 years from now.

There are a couple of templates floating around out there you can use, but I ultimately just made my own and it works great.

I also still paper log as well. Frankly I enjoy the personal touch of logging everything in writing and I hope it is something my kids or grandkids will find interesting in the future. I know I cherish my grandfathers hand written log books. Plus, I figure you can never have too many back ups if you are a professional pilot. I not only have my paper logs, I have my electronic log book saved to my laptop, to a cloud, and to an external hard drive.

Bottom line, save your money and make your own electronic log and also keep doing paper.

I'd recommend LBP for the upwardly mobile since it has a lot of tools for airline apps data formats, etc. You can of course do that all yourself if you have serious excel kung fu, but that's not for everyone and you wouldn't want it to slice and dice your time wrong.

Once you're at your career-destination employer, yeah a spreadsheet is just fine... assuming you even bother to log it.

Another option is to export from ForeFlight, MyFlightBook, etc. into .xlsx format

I do that each time I add an entry

LBP is great and all, but it’s a dated product. I wish there a seamless transfer of data between APDL (especially for the high annual cost)/LBP mobile to LBP desktop.

Ive made a complete switch to logten pro because of that lack of feature with the APDL/LBP eco system.

I was part of the logten debacle as an early adopter.
- Pay $9.99 for the app or whatever it was
- Then get asked to pay something like $99 for “lifetime!” ....wait, I thought I already paid for the app?
- THEN get told I need to pay $74.99 EVERY YEAR to continue to use it...wait, haven’t I already paid for lifetime TWICE?

Told them it was absolutely trash and they gave me 3 years free and then told me to pound sand. It finally expires this week and I just switched to this:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/smart-...k/id1265793520

The interface is very similar to logten so it was an intuitive switch. Also was able to import every logten entry in about 2 minutes. Some cool features as well as printing options.

emailed the creator about my logten concerns and got this back quickly-

“Hi XXXXX, thanks for reaching out! I've actually heard from quite a few unhappy former LogTen Pro users who have switched to Smart Logbook. I give you my word that if you purchase my app, you'll be entitled to use it as long as you like, without paying again. It's a one-time purchase that applies to your current device as well as new devices. The optional sync subscription is a recurring charge, but the app is fully functional without it (you just wouldn't get automatic backup/sync of your logbook data). FWIW, the sync subscription is pretty inexpensive ($14.99/yr), and it comes with the first year for free.”