Excel Learning Methods: Your Thoughts?

[nicx42]

Hello,

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the best way to learn Excel.

I’m at a basic to intermediate level with Excel and I’m currently doing a 3-day training at work to become an "expert" (though that word feels pretty far from where I am right now!!).

Even though I can follow along, 3 days just doesn’t seem like enough. I’ve been looking online and often come across these “quick” formulas.

So, do you have any tips to share? I want to really get good at it. I enjoy Excel, so learning isn’t a problem, and my sporty side gives me the drive to push through. I’ll dive into VBA once I get more comfortable with it.

Here’s what I’m thinking:

1/ Through this forum, by looking at help requests and the answers people give, plus the tutorials and tips.

2/ Through a book, though I’m not sure if that’s the best way to learn.

3/ Through other training, but 3 days isn’t enough for me – I want something longer, more in-depth, and intensive.

4/ Through private lessons (but that can get expensive).

If any of you have reached the level I’m aiming for, could you share how you got there?

Thanks a lot, and hope to hear from you soon!

[HansV]

Welcome to Eileen's Lounge!

A good way to get familiar with Excel is to design a workbook for something that interests you or is useful to you - a catalog of your books/video games/movies, or a workbook to manage your personal finances, for example.
Think about the functionality you would like and try to implement that.

There are many websites that can help you. To name just a few:
Excel Easy - lots of free turorials, on Excel and VBA.
Exceljet - clear explanation of Excel functions, and lots of examples of formulas, from easy to advanced.
Contextures offers detailed instructions for many problems in Excel, with videos and downloadable demo workbooks.

And yes. browsing forums such as this one (and many others) can be very helpful.

[ChrisGreaves]

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the best way to learn Excel.

Hello Nick.

Nickx42>>> I’d love to hear your thoughts on the best way to learn Excel.
The best way to learn is to do; that is build LOTS of spreadsheets. My first ever spreadsheet was a budget sheet for a large firm. I was interviewed the day before and started work the next day, having spent part of the night reading the Lotus-123 DOS 2.1 manual.
The only way to “do” Excel includes making mistakes, and making mistakes is a learning experience.
Don’t be afraid to roll up your sleeves.

Nickx42>>> I’m at a basic to intermediate level with Excel and I’m currently doing a 3-day training at work to become an "expert" (though that word feels pretty far from where I am right now!!).
I taught spreadsheet classes (Lotus, Excel, QuattroPro) for ten years. Spreadsheet training classes are a but of a scam. EVERY training class is an introduction. Introducing folks to yet-another-set-of-functions is a scam.
I would say that three days of in-house learning on top of and intermediate level is more than enough training.
I tried to show classes how to LEARN about spreadsheets. I would demonstrate how anything that you wanted to do started in a menu from the menu bar. Learn to use the examples from the Help files, and so on.

Nickx42>>> So, do you have any tips to share? I want to really get good at it. I enjoy Excel, so learning isn’t a problem, and my sporty side gives me the drive to push through. I’ll dive into VBA once I get more comfortable with it.
Don’t wait to get comfortable with VBA. Or more correctly, be impatient to get uncomfortable with VBA. Start today and start getting comfortable. “The best time to learn VBA was ten years ago”.

Nickx42>>> 1/ Through this forum, by looking at help requests and the answers people give, plus the tutorials and tips.

Eileen’s Lounge is certainly one of the best places to learn. But you sound like the sort of person who could feel guilty by taking help without offering something in return, so I would respectfully suggest that you set yourself some goals that will give you a deep understanding of Excel in a way that you can offer up your findings as an offering to the/this online community. Think of these tasks as a post-graduate PHD:-
(1) Locate and treasure a Backus-Naur form of grammar that completely defines your version of Excel
(2) Build a library of utility functions in Excel/VBA and publish regular updates here on Eileen’s Lounge. Distinguish between utility functions that will provide support to any MSOffice/VBA application and those that are relevant only to Excel.
(3) Make all your VBA functions self-testing. Be rigorous in this.
(4) Develop an application that will scour your hard drive)s) and collect every scrap of VBA code into a single library with a super-fast search.

There are more suggestions, but you get the idea. You need never starve of projects in Excel.
Cheers, Chris

[snb]

Only 2 books: starting at page 1 and read it to the end; there should be structure in the way you master the structures of Excel and VBA:

John Walkenbach
https://www.excelhowto.com/books/excel-2019-bible/

Green Bullen Bovey
https://download.e-bookshelf.de/downloa ... 357334.pdf

[ChrisGreaves]

(deleted by Chris)

[HansV]

Is there an echo in here?

[ChrisGreaves]

Is there an echo in here?

There was, so thanks, Hans.
I couldn't delete the actual post; I suspect because you had replied to it?
Thanks again, Chris

[HansV]

You cannot delete posts in a thread once there is a reply below it.

[nicx42]

Only 2 books: starting at page 1 and read it to the end; there should be structure in the way you master the structures of Excel and VBA:

thanks ..am gonna check out this