Begin your Excel journey by learning essential skills such as navigating workbooks, entering formulas, formatting, and creating charts. This course offers foundational knowledge for managing data efficiently.

Aims

This course aims to provide new Excel users with a foundation knowledge of Excel’s core features such as formulas, formatting, navigation, printing and creating charts.

Outcomes

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• navigate your way around Excel
• create and work with a new workbook
• open and navigate within workbooks and worksheets
• understand and work with ranges in a worksheet
• understand, create and work with formulas and functions used to perform calculations
• copy and paste data
• understand and use formula cell referencing
• use font formatting techniques
• align the contents of cells
• format rows and columns in a worksheet
• understand and use the number formatting features
• sort and fliter list data
• print workbook data
• create effective charts.

Getting to know Excel – The Excel screen, Ribbon and Toolbars

• Start Excel
• Understand the Start Screen
• Understand Excel terminology
• Understand and Navigate the Excel Workbook Screen
• Use and Customise the Quick Access Toolbar
• Understand and use the Ribbon
• Understand and use Contextual tabs
• Dialogue Box Launchers
• Live Preview
• Undo and Redo Changes
• Customise the Quick Access toolbar to store favourite buttons
• Use Shortcut menus
• Recognise mouse shapes and their functionality

Your first Workbook

• Create Your First Workbook
• Types of Data
• Enter Data
• Move Data
• Selecting Cells
• Editing Data
• Autocalculate
• Delete versus Clear
• Spellcheck
• Save Your Workbook

Working with workbooks

• Open a Workbook
• Move Between Worksheets
• Save a Workbook
• Close a Workbook

Formulas

• Create Simple Formulas
• View Formulas
• Problems with Formulas
• Delete Formulas
• SUM function
• Copying Formulas
• AVERAGE, COUNT, MIN, MAX Functions
• BODMAS
• Edit Formulas

Absolute References

• Understanding Absolute References
• Types of Absolute References
• Applying Absolute References

Filling Data

• Autofill
• Flash Fill

Formatting

• Formatting Numbers
• Formatting Dates
• Formatting Text
• Cell Alignment
• Borders
• Format Painter

Manage Worksheets

• Adjust Columns and Row Sizes
• Insert and Delete Columns and Rows
• Insert Cells
• Insert Sheets
• Move and Copy Sheets
• Delete Sheets

Manage Lists, Sort and Filter

• List Guidelines
• Sort Lists
• Filter Lists
• Freeze Titles

Printing

• Print Preview
• Page Setup
• Partial Printing
• Orientation, Margins and Scaling
• Manage Larger Printouts
• Page Numbering

Charts

• Understand Charting
• Create Charts
• Resize and Move charts
• Chart Styles
• Add and Edit Chart Elements
• Keyboard shorts for Instant Charts

Help

• Accessing Help
• Search the Menus

Best Practice – 5 Golden Rules

• Create sheets with the future in mind
• Choose clarity over looks
• Label columns and rows
• Keep styling and formatting consistent
• Never merge cells in lists
• Quick reference guide
• Top 25 keyboard shortcuts
• Formula Error Messages

Audience

Suitable for beginners. Assumes little or no knowledge of Microsoft Excel

Materials

Course materials are provided electronically using Dropbox. Teaching instructions and materials are specifically tailored to Windows PC users.

Additional information

Recommended operating system: Windows or Mac
Recommended software for PC: MS Excel 2013, 2016, 2019, 365
Recommended software for Mac OS: MS Excel 2016, 2019, 365
Recommended browser: Chrome

You should be familiar with the basic functions of a computer operating system such as navigating the environment using a mouse and keyboard, starting applications, copying and pasting objects, formatting text, creating folders, opening files, saving files, familiarity with the accessing the Internet and use of common web browsers.