What is Excel?
One of the most commonly used platforms, Microsoft excel is known and proven to remain and support the users throughout. Excel is an Electronic Spreadsheet Program.
But what is an electronic spreadsheet? An electronic spreadsheet is a computer software program that is primarily used for storing, organizing and manipulating data.
These spreadsheet programs were originally based on paper spreadsheets and used for accounting. Therefore the basic layout of what you see a computerized spreadsheet is the same as the ones that you see in the paper. Related data is stored in tables and a table is a collection of small rectangular boxes or cells that organized into rows and columns.
The newer versions of Excel and other spreadsheet programs can now be able to store multiple spreadsheet pages in a single computer file.
The saved computer file is often referred to as what we call a workbook and each of the page in the workbook is a separate worksheet.
Why do we use spreadsheets?
Spreadsheets are ideally used to store financial data. Formulas and functions that are used on this type of data are listed below:
- Summing columns and rows and others such basic mathematical operations,
- Finding values, for example, profit and loss,
- Calculating the repayment plans for loans or regular and refinanced mortgages
- You can find the average, mean, median or mode for data specified in the question,
- Performing What-If analysis on data –that is, where variables are modified one at a time to analyze how the change affects other data – such as expenses and profits.
Some of the other functions of excel include, but not limited to,
- Graphing or charting of data that will help users in identifying the data trends and its flow;
- Sorting and filtering data in order to find specific information;
- Printing data and charts to be used in reports;
- Helps in linking worksheet data for use in other programs such as Microsoft PowerPoint and Word;
- It lets you import data from a database program for analysis.
But why should you use Excel in the first place?
Spreadsheets like Excel can prove to be very useful in the long run for students committed to working with tables, charts and calculation and other such interactive activities, like designing course syllabus. Take a look at how excel helps and contributes to Science education.
Using Excel as a calculator will allow us to understand what mathematical equations can tell us about how the real world works entered for a specific input condition or even for a range of possible values.
- The calculator will allow you to pre-construct with a focus on student exploration or students can also be used to guide in the construction of their own calculators and then with the possibility of playing with it.
- Makes space for graphically displaying equations like the analytical model and real data.
- Deriving numerical solutions to much more mathematically complex models.
- Helps in graphically comparing results from a model and thereby allowing for observations.
- Statistical analysis including mean, standard deviation, ANOVA, linear and polynomial fits, multivariate analysis, and many other operations can easily be performed without having to enter the formula
- Build amazing charts that you can use to give the audience a flavor of your data. Additionally, you can also choose to use the pie, graph or histograms based on what you are looking for.
- The conditional formatting feature it allows lets you bold or italicize the content based on what you want to focus.
- It teaches you to look beyond the graph. It can show you trends by way of presentation and will push you to see beyond just the graph, in the form of helping you infer.
- Spectral analysis (Fast Fourier Transforms).
- Displaying histograms for necessary experiments or for comparison.
Microsoft Excel is used most extensively in the workplace and that could be one probable reason why the need to learn excel or have a basic knowledge of before you enter any industry. Anyone can become a pro in Excel by focusing on Excel tutorials which are listed below.
Microsoft originally marketed a spreadsheet program that was called as Multiplan in the year 1982, which was quite popular on CP/M systems, but on MS-DOS systems it lost popularity to Lotus 1-2-3.
This then pushed for the development of a new spreadsheet called Excel which started with the intention to do everything better and good.
The first version of Microsoft Excel was released for Mac in the year 1985 and its first Windows version was released in November 1987. Lotus lagged behind in bringing 1-2-3 to Windows and by 1988 Excel had already started to outsell 1-2-3 and assisted Microsoft in achieving the position of a leading PC software developer. Microsoft made the best out of this by way of making releases every two years. The current version of Excel for the Windows platform is Excel 11 and is also known as Microsoft Office Excel 2003 and the current version of Excel for Mac OS X platform is Microsoft Excel 2004.
We understand how much useful and easy your work and life can get once you master Excel. Imagine the sudden call you will get from your teacher asking you to compare the weather changes of the past month. How are you going to do this? Verbally? But have you thought about it? How effective is a verbal presentation on figures going to be? There, Excel saves you. It gives you a way of making charts or graphs to actually demonstrate the rise or fall of the weather conditions. The best part about this is, you only have to enter the values or input into the appropriate columns and rows against their title. For the rest, allow Excel to take care. You can command Excel to calculate the mean or present the data in the form of a bar chart or box plot. That’s all!
How easy is that? That is why we decided we will collect and gather a few useful and extremely informative tutorials on Excel that will give you insight and a deeper understanding of the subject. The selected sites could be detailed tutorials or even video and eBooks that we have made so as to ensure all the kinds of learners can learn. Take a look.
Excel Tutorials- Interactive, Beginners
The training centre for Excel has a whole load of tutorials and videos and even some guides on learning Excel across different platforms like Mac OS, Android etc. The resource is divided based on the learner’s stage. For beginners you may find the basic math and creating a chart guide, for those intermediate users you can find information on sorting and filtering data, conditional formatting, and VLOOKUPs. For all those advanced users and learners, get access to learning pivot tables, advanced IF functions, and how to password-protect worksheets and workbooks.
Chandoo.org- Online, Interactive
This blog was started by Puran Chandoo Duggirala, in the year 2007. The blog is an ultimate learning resource with over 450 articles and tutorials on learning Excel and how you can make some amazing charts. The blog is also active and you can ask questions and clear your doubts.
Hubspot.com- Advanced, eBook
For those book lovers, here is a gift. you can get the eBook with the title, “How to use Excel: The Essential training guide for Data-driven marketing”. The book is meant for the slightly advanced learners and comes in handy with a quick brush up of the basics.
This website’s Excel tutorials will prove particularly useful when you are looking for some amazing templates. You can choose from these templates that are built in and available free of cost and modify them to make the best of it.
Mr.Excel.com- Online, Interactive
Another great site to fall on, Mr. Excel has vibrant and active board members will answer any of the queries you have. Excel tutorials of this website are for all those who have either basic knowledge of Excel or are beginners. Your questions could be anything basic from how to make a graph to some of the complex questions you may have. Your queries will be replied to by some Excel experts. They have an interactive message board, one that is always monitored by the Excel experts. Their board is organized into sections like Mr. Excel products, general announcements, and questions.
Video Tutorials
How do you like a video tutorial? For those of you, who think can learn better from videos, here is a video tutorial that will let you master Excel. Annie Cushing is a web analytics expert who has designed a blog and also has a YouTube channel. The content found may not all be about Excel-related topics, but much of it is about Google Analytics. So, for example, it does contain some great Excel video tutorials. What is even beneficial is they were created with marketing and web analytics in mind, so they’re directly applicable to things like marketing data reports, which means you basically learn a little above the scratch with real data in hand.
Lynda.com- Video Course
Now if you are ready to invest a little, here is a good site, to begin with. Your investment will be worth the money. The site contains over 100 courses on Excel and over 4,000 video tutorials that cover every version of the program, at all levels of expertise. The topics they cover are pretty broad ranging from something as general as “Statistics with Excel Part One,” to more niche topics, like “Data Visualization Storytelling Essentials.”
ExcelIsFun- Video Tutorial
This is yet another popular and most sought after YouTube channel. This video tutorial aims to make Excel and learning more exciting. They have more than 2000 videos and are neatly organized into 50 different playlists on different topics. Choose the topic you want to focus and pick it up from there.
New Features in Office 2013
This video tutorial will teach you the basic overview of Microsoft Excel. It also nicely explains and it covers the fundamental concepts such as what a cell is, what is a worksheet, and how you can format cells, saving them and sharing them and many such related topics. Since video tutorials are a great way to start, you can probably start from here.
Excel Tutorials- Beginners Video Tutorials
Microsoft Excel- From Beginner to an Expert in Six hours, is a very powerful video Excel tutorial that you can come across. The course instructor covers a wide range of content from the basic concepts to the more advanced Excel features such as the macros, pivot tables, subtotaling, and many more. This video tutorial will also tell you how to harness the data from the web and how you can create the online forms which will permit you to take surveys. It will additionally provide access to work materials which will give you hands-on experience to ace Excel. At the end of each topic, expect to find some quiz that you can test yourself on. This power packed video is a lot of fun and you probably don’t want to miss this.
Microsoft Excel- Advanced Excel Formulas & functions
This Excel tutorial targeted primarily for the advanced learners, this video tutorial will focus on the advanced excel formulas and functions such as the formula based formatting, statistical function, logical operators etc. With the basic knowledge of Excel, this one will be quite suitable for advanced learners.
Excel Tips Weekly
This video tutorial is another classic video tutorial by Dennis Taylor and through this platform, he will take you through the advanced concepts of pivot tables in data analysis. Be prepared to find some of the best tips and tricks in every video that will contribute to learning mastering Excel like a pro. This video tutorial is targeted for the people with basic knowledge of Excel.
