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Excel, Microsoft's spreadsheet program with millions of diehard fans and millions of outspoken detractors, has been around since 1985. In its multiple decades of existence, Excel has undergone myriad updates and improvements and, in the hands of a skilled user, it's truly a remarkable piece of software.
But mastering the many formulas, layouts, and tools that come into play with the countless rows, columns, cells of an Excel file can be a daunting and frustrating process. We're here to tell you that it's worth it, and that Excel can actually be a rewarding and — dare we say it? — enjoyable program to use.
Just ask the data whizzes who participate each year in the Microsoft Excel World Championship. You read that correctly; Excel Esports is a live competition in which participants solve unusual game tasks using Microsoft Excel. It began in the fall of 2020, and it sees competitors advancing through rounds of challenges by scoring points for correctly solving challenges in limited periods of time.
Also called the Financial Modeling World Cup, problems presented during the Microsoft Excel World Championship go well beyond matters of finance and accounting and include challenges based on data analysis, formula creation, and much more.
But even if you don't see yourself competing on the world stage, Excel is a highly useful program for the average user. Here's what you need to know about using Excel:
If you choose to buy just Microsoft Excel as opposed to the Microsoft 365 suite of software, which comes with Excel along with programs like Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Teams, the one-time purchase price is $159.99. You will pay just $6.99 per month for the full Microsoft 365 subscription, though, so that's usually the better route.
And if you're wondering why Excel is so expensive, it's largely because of all the security features built into the program. Note that you can get a one-month free trial of Microsoft Excel and all the other 365 programs, including Copilot, the company's AI-powered productivity tool.
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There is a lot to learn with Excel — more than most people will ever likely know. The key to mastering Excel is to start slowly, making sure you fully understand each function before moving on to more complicated aspects of the software.
Start by just playing around with the basics, such as changing the width and height of columns and rows, respectively, making text colored, bold, or in different fonts, and so on. When you have the basics down, turn to free online tutorials to help you learn more about Excel's more involved features, such as creating formulas.
You can use the tutorial service Udemy's online courses like "Useful Excel for Beginners" or "Excel Quick Start Tutorial: 36 Minutes to Learn the Basics," to name a few examples.
There are also scores of books you can buy (or get from the library) that are all about learning Microsoft Excel.
You can make hundreds and hundreds of different formulas in Excel, including those that run mathematical equations, that generate calendars or schedules, that calculate averages and values, that reshape the layout of a spreadsheet to make it look better, and so much more.
A few of the must-know Excel formulas include SUM, which is used to rapidly do addition with data entered into cells, COUNT, which, predictably, is used for counting numbers, and VLOOKUP, which can calculate the value in a table or other array. You can enter any formula by selecting an empty cell and typing the = sign in front of the formula (for example, =SUM or =VLOOKUP).
