How to Learn Excel Online: 12 of the Best Resources for Excel Training 1) Microsoft's Excel Training Center When it comes to learning a new application, why not start at the source? The Downloads tab is another particularly helpful section of Walkenbach's site, where he's added free, ungated download links to files he created, like free Excel workbooks and add-ins. He started the blog in 2007 and, today, it contains over 450 articles and tutorials on using Excel and making better charts. When a user posts a question, a member of the MrExcel.com expert community will reply with an answer. You can ask questions in your native language. While the content here isn't all Excel-related -- much of it is about Google Analytics, for example -- it does contain some great Excel video tutorials. To give you an idea of what the videos are like, here's one of our favorites, which covers a comprehensive overview of Excel charts: 8) Lynda.com's Excel Training Tutorials Price: Membership starts at $19.99/month | 10-day free trial available If you're willing to invest a little cash in your Excel training, Lynda.com is a worthwhile place to spend it. 10) EdX Excel Courses Price: Free Here's a more budget-friendly option for those in search of a more formal course, rather than a one-off tutorial. Otherwise, there are some courses offered at a "Professional Education" level, for which the fee isn't optional. That includes a few video tutorials on Excel.
I can’t be the only one out there who wants to master the world’s most popular data analysis and visualization solution — or at least learn how to create charts and graphs that’ll impress my manager. So in the spirit of becoming a more productive, data-driven marketer, I scoured the internet for the best online resources for learning Excel. Most of these are free, and the ones that aren’t might be worth the investment . Take a look, bookmark your favorites, and get that much closer to working more efficiently in Excel.
How to Learn Excel Online: 12 of the Best Resources for Excel Training
1) Microsoft’s Excel Training Center
When it comes to learning a new application, why not start at the source? After all, no one knows Excel better than the people at Microsoft.
In fact, they’ve done a great job putting together the Office Training Center: A resource hub for all Microsoft Office applications and services. The training center for Excel has a whole bunch of free tutorials, videos, and guides on Windows, Mac OS, Android, iOS, and Windows Phone that cover the latest version of Excel, as well as older ones.
Once you click into a platform, you’ll find resources divided by Excel ability: For beginners (like basic math and creating a chart), intermediate users (like sorting and filtering data, conditional formatting, and VLOOKUPs), and advanced users (like pivot tables, advanced IF functions, and how to password-protect worksheets and workbooks).
2) The Spreadsheet Page
Here’s a very well-organized site that’s chock full of helpful Excel tips, collected by an expert named John Walkenbach. Over the past thirty years, he’s written more than 60 Excel books for users of all levels, and around 300 articles and reviews for magazines like InfoWorld, PC World, and PC/Computing. At one point, he wrote the monthly spreadsheet column for PC World. In other words, the man knows his stuff — and he knows how to present it.
The most helpful part of his website is probably the Excel Tips tab, which has a long list of useful pointers on formatting, formulas, charts and graphics, and printing. The tips themselves include everything from working with fractions, to unlinking a pivot table from its source data, to spreadsheet protection FAQs.
The Downloads tab is another particularly helpful section of Walkenbach’s site, where he’s added free, ungated download links to files he created, like free Excel workbooks and add-ins. For example, there’s one Excel workbook available for download that gives examples of custom number formats, which you can play with and tweak on your own time, and get familiar with them without having to start from scratch.
3) About.com’s Spreadsheets Page
Many of you are likely familiar with the content website About.com, but did you know it has its own spreadsheets subdomain — much of which is devoted to Excel? There are likely thousands of instruction sets on that site, most of which are illustrated, how-to posts. Plus, fresh content is added regularly.
Each piece of content is categorized according to everything from formulas and formatting, to videos, tools, and templates. If you want to stay up-to-date on the latest spreadsheet news and tips, you can sign up for a free newsletter. There’s just one caveat, which is that the site contains a good amount of ads — but if you can stand them, the content is worth it.
4) Chandoo.org
Price: Free
Purna “Chandoo” Duggirala, Chandoo.org‘s founder, says he has one goal: “to make you awesome at Excel and charting.” He started the blog in 2007 and, today, it contains over 450 articles and tutorials on using Excel and making better charts. He’s built the blog as a community, citing values like humility, passion, fun, and simplicity. He also works to make it a valuable resource for the folks for whom English is not their first language.
Most of his tips stem from forums, where people ask questions about Excel — about formulas, formatting, shortcuts, pivot tables, and so on — and anyone can answer them. Chandoo then uses some of the more helpful forum questions to create articles and tutorials.
But it’s not all so formal. For example, Chandoo once created a digital Easter egg hunt for a blog post, which included a downloadable Excel workbook containing seven hidden pandas. Readers were challenged to locate the pandas using clues, Excel techniques, and even “I-Spy” skills.
While the articles, forums, and other parts of the site are free, you can pay to join one of Chandoo’s structured training programs, like Excel School ($97 – $247), or VBA Classes ($97 – $347). Plus, there’s aways the option to buy one of his books — The VLOOKUP Book or Excel Formula Helper…
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