Excel for Beginners

Have you ever wondered if there are tools that can help you organise and analyse your data in a presentable way? Microsoft Excel can help you do exactly that. A powerful spreadsheet tool that is used to record and analyse numerical data is known as Microsoft Excel. In Excel, there are rows and columns that are represented by numbers and alphabets respectively. The point at which a column and row meet is known as a call. Excel is one of the most basic requirements that any organisation looks into while hiring a candidate. Learn Excel online, and be better equipped to perform well at your job. Before we move further ahead, let us understand why we should start learning Excel basics today.

Why should I learn Microsoft Excel?  

All of us deal with numbers in one way or another. Be it daily expenses, or data collected for conducting research. Excel is an ideal way to store and analyse such numeric data. There is a pool of Excel online courses today that can help you learn more about this powerful tool. One of the main reasons to learn Excel is that it boosts your employability to a greater degree. Whether you are a data scientist, an entrepreneur, a teacher, or a content creator, you will need to use Excel at some point in your career. 

It can help you in multiple ways. Let us take a look at a few reasons to learn Excel. 

• It can help you organise data in an easy-to-navigate way
• Perform basic and complex calculations and mathematical functions
• Represent piles of data in the form of helpful graphs and charts
• Analyse data and forecast predictions
• Create, and edit pivot tables and images, and so much more

For these reasons, it is always advisable to take up an excel course and understand the fundamentals of the tool. 

Common functions used in Excel

There are hundreds of functions that can be used in Excel, but in this free excel tutorial for beginners, let us understand some of the basic and most widely used functions. 

• =SUM() – Adds series of cells
• =IF() – Checks if the specified condition is met and returns a particular value if YES and a particular value if NO
• =AVERAGE() – Calculates the average value of a series of cells
• =MIN() – Returns the minimum value 
• =MAX() – Returns the maximum value
• =SMALL() – Returns the smallest value 
• =LARGE() – Returns the largest value 
• =VLOOKUP() – Helps in looking for a value that is in the leftmost column of a table 
• =COUNT() – Helps in counting the number of cells in a series 

Important shortcuts in Excel

• F2 - Edit active cell
• F4 - Toggle references
• CTRL + 1 - Format Cells
• CTRL + C - Copy
• CTRL + V - Paste
• CTRL + R - Fill right
• CTRL + D - Fill down
• ALT, I, R - Insert row
• ALT, I, C - Insert column

Let us understand some of the best practices to be followed while using Excel that will be taught to you in free excel courses.

1. Save the workbook with compatibility in mind. In case you aren’t using the latest features, you should save your files in 2003 *.xls format for backwards compatibility.
2. Use appropriate names for columns and worksheets in a workbook. This will ensure that there is no confusion.
3. As far as possible, it is better to not work with complex formulas that have many variables. It is easier to break them into smaller groups. 
4. Make it a habit to use built-in functions whenever you can. 

Why join GLA

Excel for Beginners is a free course provided by Great Learning Academy for you to achieve knowledge about Microsoft Excel and how it works. The course covers the concepts around all the basic skills required such as ribbon, functions, customising the workbooks, inserting graphs, tables, and so much more. 

This Excel for Beginners course is among the best online excel courses and is most suited for freshers who are just beginning to learn Excel. The free Excel course can also work well as a refresher for anyone who wants to revise their knowledge about Excel before starting a new job or attending an interview.   

Great Learning Academy is a repository of free as well as premium resources in several domains such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Digital Marketing, and so much more. You can also sign up for this free course and start your career by learning from the best in the industry. 

This Excel for Beginners course will provide you with the requisite understanding and skillsets to be able to make the most effective use of Microsoft Excel. It is an industry-leading spreadsheet software. It is a very powerful analysis as well as a data visualisation tool. Through these free online excel courses with a certificate, you will be able to learn how to use formulas to perform complex calculations to analyse your data. You will also get a comprehensive understanding of concepts such as borders, sorting and filtering with the data, date and time, and if-else condition.