Can I Learn Microsoft Office On My Own?

Microsoft Office is a productivity software bundle developed by the Microsoft Corporation. Office provides services and applications that allow people to perform every day or high-level tasks at home, at school, or at work. 

The Office bundle includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, and OneDrive to facilitate creating documents, presentations, and spreadsheets on Windows or Apple computers. Microsoft Office is also available as Microsoft 365, a subscription version of Office that provides the same core desktop applications along with additional apps and online services for secure cloud storage, communication, and collaboration.

It is possible to learn Microsoft Office on your own by watching tutorials and completing practice exercises. You can also sign up for a self-paced class that you can work on at your leisure. Teaching yourself Microsoft Office takes longer than signing up for an in-person or live online class, and it is difficult to know if you are getting the most up-to-date information. Also, many people find they need the structure of a class with a live instructor to hold them accountable for finishing their work.

Advantages to Self-Teaching Microsoft Office

One advantage to teaching yourself Microsoft Office is convenience. You can watch self-paced materials whenever and wherever you want. If you have a full-time job, you can watch videos at home after work and on the weekends. If you need to take a break for a few days, you can do that because you set your own schedule.

You can teach yourself Microsoft Office for free. You can watch YouTube videos and find tutorials on Excel or PowerPoint without paying. If you need something more in-depth, self-paced classes are generally less expensive than courses that have a live instructor. While this may save you money, it will cost you in terms of time. An experienced instructor has been working with Microsoft Office for a number of years and will steer you in the direction you need to go.

Microsoft Office Self-Teaching Tools

If you are interested in learning more about Microsoft Office, video tutorials are a great way to get started. You can pull up a video on Word while you eat lunch or learn about Excel in the evening after you get home. You can go at your own speed and watch the video as many times as you need to grasp the information. 

Noble Desktop offers many free videos on its website, including Top 10 Beginner Excel Tricks You Need to Know or PowerPoint Presentation Design. The videos are each about an hour long and include graphics, images, and explanations by experienced instructors, and the content is updated regularly to present the most up-to-date information.

You can also find free tutorials on Microsoft's website on the different applications that can help you understand the basics of Microsoft Office. These are recorded sessions of varying lengths and some can prepare you to take one of the Microsoft Office Expert Certification Exams.

On-demand classes are self-paced like free tutorials, but you have to pay for them.

You can watch these prerecorded video sessions anytime and anywhere. They are usually accessed through a subscription platform, some of which offer a limited free trial period. 

If you are highly motivated, you can learn Microsoft Office this way, according to your own schedule. 

On-demand subscription courses tend to be less expensive than in-person and live online sessions. The business social media platform LinkedIn offers LinkedIn Learning with thousands of classes on many different topics for $29.99 a month or $239.88 a year for an individual. The subscription becomes active after a one-month free trial. Coursera costs $59 per month or $399 per year with a one-week free trial. Skillshare also offers a one-month free trial and a monthly membership for $32 or an annual membership for $168. 

Drawbacks to Learning Microsoft Office on Your Own

One drawback of teaching yourself Microsoft Office is that you don't have a live instructor to answer questions, which can slow down the process. Also, it can be difficult to tell how up-to-date the information is. Online tools change frequently, and old information can slow down your learning process. An experienced instructor will teach you the best way to use the applications and warn you of the common pitfalls.

Another possible issue with learning Microsoft Office on your own is that you don't have anyone to hold you accountable. You are entirely responsible for watching the videos and completing the assignments. Some on-demand classes have asynchronous teaching assistants you can contact via email, but this takes more time than simply asking a question in class. Learning on your own can also feel isolating.

Alternatives to Learning Microsoft Office on Your Own

An alternative to learning Microsoft Office is to take a class. You can find in-person or live online classes at community colleges and professional training centers. There are introductory classes, intensive bootcamps, and certificate courses.

Professional training centers offer classes for people who want to build technical skills. Classes meet in person or live online, on a part-time or full-time schedule. These classes are designed to take students from beginners to experts in a matter of a few weeks or months. Some schools allow students to retake a class for free to review for up to a year and offer help putting together a marketing portfolio.

You will also need to decide which learning environment works best for you. If you prefer in-person classes, you can usually find those in larger cities or at community colleges. These are traditional classroom sessions with an instructor and students in a classroom or computer lab. If you can't find a class that meets in person, you can choose a live online class. These courses run at the same time as an in-person session with some students logging on through a video conferencing platform. Online students can ask questions and talk to other students during breaks, work together on group assignments, and get help from the instructor if they need it. You can access a live online class from anywhere that has internet access.

The length of Microsoft Office courses depends on their focus. Bootcamps are intensive classes presenting one topic, like Word or Excel. These classes usually last two to three days. Certificate courses include classes on several different applications and are designed to get you ready to use these in a professional setting. These courses last several weeks to months.

The cost of in-person and live online classes from professional development or training programs, like Noble Desktop, vary widely from school to school. A two-day Microsoft Word Bootcamp course costs $498 and Noble's 54-hour Complete Microsoft Office Bootcamp course costs $1,725. ONLC Training offers one-day courses for $295, two-day sessions for $795, and three-day classes for $1,495. A general rule of thumb is the longer the course, the more it costs. These are either in-person or live online classes with a live instructor in the classroom or remote over a platform like Zoom.

Learn Microsoft Office Skills with Noble Desktop

Whether you want to learn Microsoft Office skills for home tasks, school work, or to find a new job, you can find many course options. These 6 - 12 hour courses are available in person in New York City or live online from anywhere.

The Microsoft Office Fundamentals Bootcamp from Noble Desktop helps you gain the skills you need in essential Office applications like Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Outlook. These four applications are used every day by businesses all over the world, and learning how to use them efficiently and effectively can help you start a new career. Instruction includes an overview of the Excel workflow, how to format worksheets and add visual effects, and how to create graphics. The course also covers creating PowerPoint presentations by choosing layouts, adding content, and running a slide show. In the Word class, you will learn how to navigate through documents, add images, and create tables, lists, and notes. Finally, the Outlook class will cover automated email searches, managing a calendar, scheduling, organizing contacts, and tracking correspondence. You get a 15% discount when you sign up for the 4-day bootcamp instead of taking each class separately. 

Microsoft Office Intermediate Bootcamp from Noble Desktop takes up where the Fundamentals class stops. You will learn about Excel Pivot Tables, advanced functions like VLOOKUP, and how to make your workflow smoother and faster with automation. The PowerPoint module covers creating reusable templates, how to import files from Excel, use multimedia and layered objects, and record a slideshow. The Word section covers automation tools, custom document styles, and productivity features. Finally, the Outlook class shows you how to configure email accounts, perform advanced searches, control spam, and manage calendars and contacts.

The Complete Microsoft Office Bootcamp from Noble Desktop will make you an Office expert. This advanced course offers 54 hours of instruction in PowerPoint, Outlook, Word, and Excel. The course goes from introductory material through advanced to give you comprehensive training in these important business skills.

Noble Desktop offers Outlook Bootcamp for new users who want to understand how to use this Office application for sending email and scheduling appointments to increase productivity. Learn about customizing, automating, and managing your email accounts, plus optimizing your calendar and organizing your contacts.

If you want to build confidence in your document preparation skills, Word Bootcamp from Noble Desktop can help you get there. This comprehensive class can take you from beginner to expert in as little as two days. Learn how to navigate through Word and format documents; work with text at the sentence and paragraph level; insert images, tablets, lists, and citations; track changes; customize document style; and use forms and mail merge features.

Noble Desktop's three-day Excel Bootcamp will take you from absolute beginner to expert in a few days. The course starts with the basics like performing calculations, creating graphs, formatting, and printing. Move on to more advanced features like pivot tables, VLOOKUP, SUMIFs, and advanced database functions like INDEX and MATCH. This course is available in person in NYC or live online from anywhere.

PowerPoint Bootcamp is a two-day course from Noble Desktop to help you learn PowerPoint basics like creating layouts, adding text, images, shapes, SmartArt, and more. Work with tables and charts to organize information in your presentations. Day two delves into more advanced features like how to create a reusable PowerPoint Theme/Template to make an easily updatable, engaging, consistent presentation. Add excitement with animations, add video, and learn how to manage large presentations with sections and custom shows.

Excel Level 1: Fundamentals from Noble Desktop covers the basic concepts of Microsoft Excel. This course covers how to do calculations, create graphs, format worksheets, and print or share them in Microsoft Excel. Class assignments are designed to help you practice concepts based on real-world examples as you learn them. Students also receive exclusive reference materials as part of the class. This course is available in person in NYC or live online from anywhere.

Noble Desktop's introductory PowerPoint Level 1 course covers the fundamental concepts of this popular presentation software. Learn how to create new presentations, choose slides and add content, add pictures and graphics and learn to adjust them, how to use SmartArt, draw lines and shapes, align objects, insert tables and charts, add transitions, and learn to run the final presentation. This course is available in person in NYC or live online from anywhere.

Microsoft Word is one of the world's most popular word-processing programs. This introductory Microsoft Word Level 1 course from Noble Desktop covers the fundamental concepts and skills, including preparing and sending mass letters, labels, and emails with one click, introductory formatting, and shortcuts to save time on routine tasks. This course is available in person in NYC or live online from anywhere.

Noble Desktop's Microsoft Access Level 1 will help you keep your Microsoft Office work organized. Access is a database program that can organize and manage data. You will learn to join, sort, and filter data from different tables, use forms to view, access, and input data, and create and format reports. The class will also cover designing a relational database, joining tables, validating data, using advanced queries, and organizing and customizing your database.