Ask HN: Best way/resources to learn Excel?

41 points by goatherders 8y ago ↗ HN

I am an average Excel user. Work and whatnot necessitate that I need to get closer to expert level, particularly with regard to pivot tables and pulling data from one sheet/column/row And feeding it into other places as a sum, percentage, ratio, etc.

I would prefer an actual course with structure and a coherent curriculum instead of random YouTube videos. I know there was a startup here about 8 months ago touting Excel training. Any suggestions? Thank you.

13 comments

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mathattack 8y ago ↗

I don't know anyone who has learned it well via a course. It's almost always a group activity, looking at how peers solve problems in their spreadsheets in Excel. Perhaps the courses are worse than programming courses because they tend to assume a lower starting point, and can be too abstract without trying to solve a specific problem at hand.

JamesBarney 8y ago ↗

Pluralsight has a couple of videos that are ok. But they mostly focus on vba.

ishfuseini 8y ago ↗

Lynda.com has some tutorials. This crash course at wallstreetprep (https://www.wallstreetprep.com/self-study-programs/excel-cra...) looks to cover many of the basics. I haven't taken it though.

saltvedt 8y ago ↗

You Suck at Excel with Joel Spolsky https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c

chrisked 8y ago ↗

https://chandoo.org/ taught me a lot. It’s a pretty intensive repository :)

garyclarke27 8y ago ↗

Search for ExcelIsFun You Tube Channel. This guy is a truly incredible teacher, thousands of videos from basic to guru level. I suggest you learn: Excel Tables, Index Function (lookup and reference versions) Match Function, SumIfs, CountIfs - inside out - better than Pivot Tables - plus how to write UDFs and Macros in VBA - then maybe PowerBI now part of data tab in Excel 2016.

tjt 8y ago ↗

ExcelIsFun helped me so much! Working with Excel and trying to make more complicated solutions is what got me interested in programming and led to the job I have now.

I've also really enjoyed "Excel 2013: Power Programming with VBA" by Walkenbach.

spinchange 8y ago ↗

This isn't strictly a recommendation because I've never used it, but this always looked helpful to me. They have some self-contained tutorials and courses that are all within an Excel workbook

https://exceleverest.com/

edimaudo 8y ago ↗

Check r/excel and youtube - excelisfun.

cdl 8y ago ↗

The first chapter of "Data Smart" (https://www.amazon.ca/Data-Smart-Science-Transform-Informati...) gets into some more advanced but practical tasks in Excel. The material is accessible to the beginner and assumes little prior knowledge of Excel.

ixacto 8y ago ↗

Excel couses on EdX are good if you are interested in Excel pivot & BI features.

krembo 8y ago ↗

Look for Dany Hoter. He will take your skills to a complete different level much above all others.

therojam 8y ago ↗

Took a look the dummy books or at udemy?