Free online courseExcel for Beginners: 2-Hour Crash Course in Formulas, Charts and Pivot Tables

Course Description

Learn Excel from the ground up with this free beginner-friendly course in Office Productivity. You will get comfortable with the Excel interface, understand how workbooks and worksheets are organized, and navigate efficiently using the ribbon, tabs, and built-in help so you can work faster from day one.

Build solid spreadsheet habits by entering and organizing data correctly, including numbers, dates, and times, while adjusting column widths and row heights for clean, readable layouts. You will also learn practical ways to speed up data entry by selecting cells efficiently and keeping your work safe by saving locally or in the cloud for easier access across devices.

Improve the look and usability of your spreadsheets with essential formatting, tables, and layout tools. You will practice inserting and managing rows and columns, copying and moving data accurately, using conditional formatting to highlight key insights, and keeping sheets tidy with hide, find, and replace features.

Move from raw data to answers by learning formulas and everyday functions. You will create and repeat formulas, understand relative and absolute references, follow the correct order of operations, and use common functions such as SUM, MAX, MIN, COUNT, and AVERAGE. You will also work with lookup tools, including VLOOKUP and XLOOKUP, to retrieve values from tables and build more useful models.

Turn your data into clear visuals and insights by creating and formatting charts, then analyzing data to choose the right chart for the story you want to tell. You will sort and filter information, switch worksheet views for different tasks, and summarize large datasets with pivot tables for quick reporting.

Round out your Excel essentials with time-saving features like Flash Fill for splitting and combining text, plus view controls such as freeze and split panes for easier navigation. You will manage multiple worksheets and workbooks, collaborate safely with protection and sharing options, review version history, and prepare professional printouts by setting print areas, adjusting page settings, repeating headers, and controlling gridlines and page breaks.