How do Beginners Learn Excel?

If you’re new to spreadsheets and want to learn the ins and outs of Microsoft Excel, many excellent resources are available. Beginner-friendly content is provided by top educators around the globe, both in person and online. Students can opt for live resources like skills classes, bootcamps, certificates, and on-demand content like self-paced courses, blog posts, and YouTube videos. These educational tools cover basic concepts, including navigating worksheets, formatting them, saving and printing them, and performing basic calculations. Once you acquire this foundational training, you can build on it as you learn more advanced spreadsheet skills. This article will briefly explore how you can get started working with Excel, the first steps to take in your learning process, and the tools and live training options in place to help you gain the training you need.

Getting Started with Excel

Before you can use Microsoft Excel on your computing device, the application must be installed. Excel is offered as part of Office 2021 as a one-time purchase for PCs or Macs. This provides access to several popular Office apps (including Excel) for one computing device. No upgrades are available, however, if you opt for this type of purchase. Excel is also included as part of the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity tools, which includes other popular tools like Word, PowerPoint, OneDrive, and Outlook. Those interested in purchasing this suite can do so directly from Microsoft. This family of apps also includes cloud-connected features for real-time collaboration. Those interested in downloading Microsoft 365 can do so on a monthly or yearly basis. If you want to explore Excel before paying for a Microsoft 365 subscription, Microsoft also offers a free Excel trial. You can download Excel and other tools to get a feel for how they work before committing to a paid subscription.

The First Steps when Learning Excel

The first thing you’ll encounter when working with Microsoft Excel is this app’s interface. Those new to working with spreadsheets will likely need to begin their Excel studies by becoming familiar with how to navigate this app and its basic features. The data in an Excel worksheet is organized in a grid layout with rows and columns, each consisting of individual cells. Each cell can contain numbers, text, functions, or formulas. Excel users input data into individual cells. The cells can be formatted in many ways, including through bolding or color, to help spreadsheet users spot patterns and notice trends. Basic Excel formatting, such as incorporating a yellow background in certain cells to highlight outliers, is something most learners will need to become familiar with as they begin to work with this application.

Once information is added to a spreadsheet, Excel users apply formulas to make basic or advanced calculations using these numbers. Basic formulas and calculations, including SUM, to add the values of a series of numbers, AVERAGE to calculate the mean of a range, and COUNT to determine the total number of cells within a range that contains a number, are essential skills most students will need to become familiar with early on in their spreadsheet studies. Excel offers many formulas and functions that are capable of performing both basic and complex calculations. Once students learn the basics, they can move into more advanced functions, including VLOOKUP and SUMIF. 

Another important component of working with Excel is using its data visualization capabilities. This spreadsheet app is widely used to create graphs and charts that visually depict the data that are entered into the spreadsheet. Excel users can select from a range of chart types, such as line graphs, pie charts, and bar graphs, each of which has its own benefits for representing data findings in an accessible way. Exploring the basics of how Excel can be used to visualize data is another early starting point for most spreadsheet students.

Free Excel Tools for Beginners

If you’re just getting started learning Microsoft Excel and don’t want to invest hundreds or thousands of dollars in your studies, a variety of free spreadsheet resources and tutorials are available online on platforms like YouTube that can provide useful instruction in a range of Excel features and functions. Since Excel is so prevalent across job paths and industries, free online resources can be an excellent way to get started learning a specific Excel skill, such as how to format cells or search for a range of values. Thousands of videos and other resources are available from top educators around the globe and posted for free online. If you have a specific Excel question, you can search for an answer online and likely find material that provides clarification. Some popular YouTube Excel channels are available from ExcelisFun, Excel Campus, TeachExcel, and Excel Dude. 

Free online resources can be a great starting place if you’d like to acquire fundamental spreadsheet training, such as an overview of the Excel interface and its basic features. Microsoft Support provides free video training options in a range of core spreadsheet skills, such as how to get started working with this app, use tables and charts, share and co-author documents, and explore Power Query. Many providers offer free online resources designed to cover basic, intermediate, or advanced Excel skills. Additionally, tech training companies like Noble Desktop also offer free online Excel resources, including 10 Beginner Excel Tricks You Need to Know. This hour-long video is a great place to start your Excel learning journey, as it includes instruction on core topics like navigation shortcuts, autofill, and absolute cell reference. 

There are also a variety of free books, blog posts, and other training content that cover Excel features and functions for those interested in reading more about this app. Noble Desktop has a range of well-researched articles on useful Excel skills and timely topics. Noble’s Learn Hub contains more than three dozen articles on Excel topics like how to customize the ribbon, create a basic sparkline, and use Excel on an Android phone.

Live Excel Training for Beginners

Live Excel training classes are the most engaging and interactive way for beginners to learn this industry-standard spreadsheet application. Both bootcamps and shorter skills classes are available with a focus entirely on Excel. These courses are taught in person at designated training facilities in major cities around the country, as well as in the live online environment using Zoom or a similar teleconferencing platform. Students benefit not only from personalized instruction from a teacher with real-world spreadsheet knowledge but also from the sense of community and camaraderie that comes with studying alongside others. Participants can ask questions in real-time and receive immediate support, clarification, and guidance, which helps them commit the skills they’re learning to memory. Excel bootcamps typically take participants from beginner-level to advanced training over the course of several days or weeks. Skills classes are shorter and available at the introductory level for those who want to spend a day or so acquiring basic spreadsheet training.

The Next Step

If you’re interested in learning Excel alongside other job-relevant job skills, certificate programs are an excellent alternative. Certificates, such as the Data Analysts Certificate available from Noble Desktop, can be completed in several weeks of part-time study and cost only a fraction of university tuition. Most certificate programs in which Excel is taught combine this training with other skills, including SQL, Python, Tableau, or Microsoft Power BI. Part-time and full-time study options are available to accommodate learners who must balance their training alongside work or family commitments. 

Certificate study is an excellent way for those who are new to Excel to acquire hands-on training either in person or live online and apply this knowledge professionally immediately upon graduation. These career-focused programs ensure that students leave with a well-rounded skill set that will make them competitive in the job market. In addition to in-class training, certificates also often include professional development incentives, such as 1-on-1 personalized mentoring sessions, career counseling, access to networking events, or resume critiques. 

Excel is currently being used by more than 700,000 companies in the US. The advanced-level Excel training you’ll complete during a certificate program will prepare you to perform a range of in-demand spreadsheet tasks in a professional setting. You can better organize data, more easily spot patterns in the numbers contained in spreadsheets, share workbooks in real time, and perform accurate data analysis with visualized results. These advanced skills can be put to use in a range of careers. Those who wish to put their spreadsheet training to use in finance can work as Financial Analysts or Accountants and help their organization with tasks like reviewing sales figures and annual revenue, as well as assisting with investment decisions. In human resources-related career paths, Excel skills can be put to use in keeping track of payroll, attendance, or employee information. In the business sector, Business Analysts work with Excel to keep track of vast stores of company data, organize this information, and ensure it’s safe and accessible. Project Managers rely on Excel knowledge for smaller projects, such as managing financial information, compiling vendor lists, and generating reports. 

Learn Excel with Noble Desktop

If you’re interested in learning more about spreadsheets, Noble Desktop provides in-person and live online Excel courses. These classes are available to those who are just getting started using spreadsheets and professionals who want to acquire advanced-level Excel training. All Noble courses provide hands-on training in a small class environment and include a free course retake for up to a full year.

For those who want to explore Excel basics, Excel Level I: Fundamentals is an excellent learning option. This one-day program covers all the essential spreadsheet skills you’ll need to start working with this application. Participants explore basic functions, calculations, formatting, graphs, and printing. This program is intended for those who have little experience with Excel and want to become more proficient.

Excel Level 2: Intermediate is intended for those looking to build on their basic Excel training and take their skills even further. This short class covers topics like working with SUMIFs and VLOOKUP. Participants become familiar with using PivotTables to summarize data, split and join text, and sort and filter databases. As a prerequisite to enrollment, students should have completed Excel Level 1 or have a similar skill set, including basic knowledge of formulas, functions, formatting, and printing.

Noble also offers Excel Level 3: Advanced for students seeking to master this application’s complicated features. This program prepares learners to work with advanced analytics tools, write macros to increase efficiency, and use complex functions like INDEX-Double MATCH and VLOOKUP-MATCH. Those who wish to enroll in this program should have proficiency with spreadsheets equivalent to Noble’s Intermediate Excel course, such as knowledge of IF statements, VLOOKUP, and PivotTables.

In addition to short courses, Noble also has a bootcamp program that offers more comprehensive spreadsheet training. In Excel Bootcamp, participants progress from Excel beginners to pros over the course of several days. This hands-on course combines beginner, intermediate, and advanced course training and leaves students with the skills necessary to work with functions and formulas, create macros, and work with PivotTables.