Learn Microsoft Excel

If you want to learn Microsoft Excel, you're in the right place. There is a lot to learn about Microsoft Excel, and not everything is in the manual. We've got a range of free online lessons on how to get the best out of Excel, starting from the basics right up to advanced subjects. We'll help you to do your job better - with the right Excel skills you could even get a raise or a better job! If you don't see what you want to learn, why not get in touch and suggest a lesson we should write.

If you want to learn Excel, this lesson covers ten important things that we think you need to know if you are going to use Excel effectively. Even if you've been using Excel for a while, check this lesson out to make sure you have the basics covered.

Excel's Pivot Table feature is an incredibly powerful tool that makes it easy to tabulate and summarise data in your spreadsheets, particularly if your data changes a lot. This lesson will show you how to create a simple pivot table in Excel to summarize a set of daily sales data for a team of several sales people.

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XLOOKUP is a new function for Excel that will replace VLOOKUP for most Excel users. In this lesson, we look at how XLOOKUP works and provide some practical examples of how to use it. In one function, XLOOKUP provides the same features that VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP offer separately, and is more powerful and easier to use. XLOOKUP also removes the need to use the INDEX/MATCH combination that allows you to work around some of VLOOKUP's shortcomings.

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There are a variety of ways to add up the numbers found in two or more cells in Excel. This lesson shows you how to use the SUM function to add up cells, rows and columns of cells in Excel.

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This lesson shows you how to write formulas using INDEX and MATCH to let you perform lookups that VLOOKUP can't, and which run much faster on large lookup tables than VLOOKUP. This lesson explains how INDEX and MATCH work on their own, and then shows you how to write an INDEX MATCH formula that can look left as well as right, and performs much faster than VLOOKUP on large tables.

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VLOOKUP allows you to look for a specified value in a column of data inside a table, and then fetch a value from another column in the same row. An example might be where you need to find the sales for a specific salesperson from within a monthly sales report. In this lesson you'll learn how to use VLOOKUP in your spreadsheets by walking you through several simple examples. The lesson will also highlight some shortcomings of VLOOKUP, plus a solution to those shortcomings.

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The SUMIFS function in Excel allows you to sum the values in a range of cells that meet multiple conditions, or criteria. For example, you might use the SUMIFS function in a sales spreadsheet to to add up the value of sales of a specific product by a given sales person (e.g. the value of all sales of a microwave oven made by John). This lesson explains how to use SUMIFS.

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The COUNTIFS function in Excel counts the number of cells in a range that match a set of multiple criteria. COUNTIFS extends the COUNTIF function which only allows one criteria. It is similar to SUMIFS, which will find the sum of all cells that match a set of multiple criteria. This lesson shows you how to use COUNTIFS and provides some practical examples to help you understand how it works.

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Once you get used to using Excel, you can find that using the mouse to select data in your spreadsheet is somewhat slow and time consuming. Here's a quick technique for selecting a range of cells in Excel.

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The MATCH() function allows you to find the position of a value in a list. For example, in a list of weekdays starting with Monday, MATCH() would return a value of 3 for Wednesday. This lesson explains how to use the MATCH() function in Microsoft Excel, explains where you might use it, and provides a real world example of the MATCH() function in action.

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If you need a free option to create a PDF of a Microsoft Office document, your options will depend on which version of Microsoft Office you are using.

COUNTBLANK allows you to count the number of empty or blank cells in a range in Excel. This lesson shows you how to use COUNTBLANK, and also shares a couple of things to watch out for when you use COUNTBLANK in an Excel formula.

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This lesson shows you how to calculate a running total between two dates in a column of data. An example might be calculating the total sales for the last 30 days up to today. Each row in the spreadsheet will calculate a new total based on the date in that row, counting back a specified number of days.

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One of the last keyboard shortcuts I mastered in Excel was moving between worksheets. Fortunately it's easy, and you don't need to wait as long as I did.

This lesson shows you a way to calculate the number of times a single character occurs in a cell in Excel, and provides a real-life example where I needed to split a column of cells containing part numbers into individual components for each part number.

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Excel Formulas

Do you need help with an Excel formula or function? We have lessons on a range of different Excel functions, and the list is growing all the time.

Click here to see the full list of Excel Formulas and Functions