Excel & Spreadsheets for the Office
From "what is a cell" to VLOOKUP and pivot tables, one small step at a time.
No account needed to read the free module.
What this course is
Excel is the most requested skill on entry-level job adverts, and it is the one most people fake. This course starts at absolute zero — what a cell is, what the little box in the corner does — and walks you all the way to lookups and pivot tables. Every lesson comes with a practice sheet you can download and follow along in Excel or free Google Sheets.
By the end you will be able to
- Build a clean spreadsheet from scratch that other people can understand
- Write formulas that do not break when you copy them
- Use VLOOKUP and XLOOKUP to join two lists together
- Summarise thousands of rows with a pivot table in under a minute
- Make a chart that tells the truth and looks professional
What’s inside
4 modules · 20 lessons
Spreadsheet Foundations
Cells, rows, formulas and the handful of habits that separate a clean sheet from a mess.
5 lessons · 35 min
- What is a spreadsheet, actually?A giant sheet of squared paper where the paper can do maths for you. Let us meet the grid.6 min
- The six formulas that cover 80% of office workSUM, AVERAGE, COUNT, MIN, MAX and IF. Learn these six and you can do most spreadsheet tasks at work.8 min
- The dollar sign that fixes everything ($)Why your formula breaks when you drag it, and the single character that stops it.7 min
- Clean data habits (why your sheet breaks)Merged cells, stray spaces and numbers stored as text. The five habits that keep a spreadsheet trustworthy.7 min
- Sorting, filtering and making it readableFind what you need in 10,000 rows, and make the result something a manager will actually read.7 min
Lookups: Joining Two Lists Together
The skill that turns you from "knows Excel" into "actually useful with Excel".
5 lessons · 40 min
- VLOOKUP explained without fearFour arguments, one job: find this thing in that list and bring back a column.9 min
- XLOOKUP: the modern replacementEverything VLOOKUP does, but simpler and without the fragile column-number trick.8 min
- INDEX + MATCH for older ExcelThe classic combination that still works everywhere, including Excel 2016.8 min
- Why your lookup says #N/ATrailing spaces, text-vs-number mismatches and IFERROR — the three-step debug.7 min
- SUMIFS and COUNTIFS: totals with conditions"Total sales in Mumbai in March for product B" — in one formula.8 min
Pivot Tables
Summarise thousands of rows into a one-screen answer, in under a minute.
5 lessons · 36 min
- Your first pivot table in 60 secondsDrag four fields into four boxes and watch 10,000 rows become a summary.8 min
- Grouping by month, quarter and yearTurning a column of daily dates into a clean monthly report.7 min
- Percentages and calculated fields"Show as % of total" and custom calculations inside the pivot.7 min
- Pivot charts and slicersClickable filters that make your report feel like a real dashboard.8 min
- Refreshing, sharing and not breaking itWhat happens when the source data changes, and how to hand a pivot to a colleague.6 min
Charts & Office Reporting
Turning your numbers into something a busy manager understands instantly.
5 lessons · 36 min
- Choosing the right chartBar for comparing, line for time, and why pie charts are almost always wrong.7 min
- Making charts honest and readableAxis starting points, labels, and the tricks that accidentally mislead people.7 min
- Building a simple dashboardFour key numbers, two charts, one screen. The layout managers actually want.9 min
- Printing and exporting properlyPrint areas, page breaks and making a PDF that fits on one page.6 min
- 20 shortcuts that save an hour a weekThe keyboard combinations that make you look like you have done this for years.7 min
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