how to improve excel skills

[bigdan]

im decent in excel but no where as good as id like to be. thing is i dont even know what i need to learn - like i know i need to brush up on macro's and pivot tables but besides that i dont know what to work on. is there any resource out here that could work? i would really prefer something with exercises at the end to cement in the knowledge.

im going to be learning at work so no youtube please. well if there's something really awesome there then lemme know and i can check it out at home but for the most part id prefer non-audio/video.

thanks!

 

[T. Valko]

im decent in excel but no where as good as id like to be. thing is i dont even know what i need to learn - like i know i need to brush up on macro's and pivot tables but besides that i dont know what to work on. is there any resource out here that could work? i would really prefer something with exercises at the end to cement in the knowledge.

im going to be learning at work so no youtube please. well if there's something really awesome there then lemme know and i can check it out at home but for the most part id prefer non-audio/video.

thanks!

It's really simple but it takes some time. A lot of time!

Spend 6 hours a day, every day, in these forums reading posts and trying the solutions provided. Experiment!

After about 4 - 5 years you should be good to go!

 

[bigdan]

haha OK. anything more realistic? i'd like something more linear, this seems very scattered.

 

[xenou]

You could do worse than spend a lot of time at Debra Dalgleish's site, which has good articles on many tools of the trade (Excel and Excel VBA):
http://www.contextures.com/tiptech.html

Also for Charting (you may like to check out his links page too):
http://peltiertech.com/Excel/Charts/

As for VBA you'll learn that here for sure. It is worthwhile to read a good book such as Excel VBA Programming for Dummies and/or Excel Power Programming, both by John Walkenbach. I also like the titles in the Business Solutions series: VBA and Macros for Microsoft Excel (by our own "Mr Excel" Bill Jelen) and Formulas and Functions with Microsoft Excel (by McFedries)

 

[T. Valko]

haha OK. anything more realistic? i'd like something more linear, this seems very scattered.

Well, that's how I did it.

Did it work? Check out my signature!

 

[bigdan]

got it. are there any notable books that come to mind? same as with above, with books id prefer to have end of chapter assignments in order to solidify learning.

 

[Joe4]

are there any notable books that come to mind?

xenou listed a couple in his last paragraph...

 

[bigdan]

those are a bit advanced for me. i want something a bit lower. also im not interested in learning vba to *that* level of sophistication, more like being adequate at it. id think a few chapters would suffice.

 

[xenou]

Excel VBA for Dummies by Walkenbach is an excellent introduction / first book on Excel VBA.

ξ

 

[personia]

Do you use Excel for work? If so you might want to ask if they'll pay for you to take instructor-led courses.

I'm no Excel guru, but I've taken 3 (soon to be 4) at New Horizons and they're awesome for learning the basics. Check out newhorizons.com

Good luck!