Microsoft Excel

[dragonxnp]

  Does anyone know excel? Is it as hard as it looks? I know little about.. excel, formulas and such. But I must learn it for a job position I applied for. Can anyone help me with some tips on how to simplify this. spreadsheets, formulas, sums. etc. or just basics. The you tube videos are to complicated for me.  

[alice44]

Check out the "How To" sites.

[de3ik]

I'm not sure what version of excel you are trying to learn, but my mother learned some things about excel from the great Simplified series concerning Microsoft office. The books are cheap. You can get them for usually a dollar or less and 3.99 shipping and they have pictures for you to follow along. Just go to amazon.com and search microsoft excel simplified. I searched it and it brought up this link in books:  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=microsoft+excel+simplified&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Amicrosoft+excel+simplified


You can also search for Microsoft word simplified or office xp simplified etc.

Let me know if that helps you.

[kay7]

I love Excel and it's really not that hard.  There are lots of things you can do with it and you didn't say just how you would be using it on the new job.  Google Docs is free and thei spreadsheets work about the same so you can practice without needing to buy Excel.  There's also Open Office which has spreadsheets and is free.  I believe Microsoft has free training on Excel.

[ricdsm]

I use Excel a lot at work.  Having an IT guy to call when you get stuck really helps.  I don't do a lot of fancy stuff but I learned simply by trial and error.  If I can learn a software program, anyone can!  I am not a computer person. Best of luck.

[lvstephanie]

I know Excel from the inside out, literally... I've even used it's .Net API in some of the programs I write for work to do manipulations to a spreadsheet without manually opening up the Excel program (".Net API" is just computer jargon to say that I use the keywords and programming functions that operate behind the scenes of the Excel application). Although I will say that now that I'm doing more computer work and less work in the natural sciences, my skills with using Excel to make graphs is a little weak. But the basics are pretty easy to pick up. The "For Dummies" series has a good book, or as de3ik said, the "Simplified" series is also a good starter book.

[minkatrozic]

 :thumbsup:It depends what you need to learn but there is a lot to learn and you better start right away. I had one course in college and it drove me crazy but at the end I have learned a lot. Good luck.I am sure that once they tell you what you have to use it for , you will learn fast. There is a button for everything just look for it.

[handllucas]

Excel is not too hard to learn.
Microsoft has excellent tutorials available on their site.
Using 'help' in Excel is confusing if you do not know the 'lingo'

[demaina]

It really isn't that hard to learn.  Most of the time, the program itself will tell you what each thing does. I learned from a book that basically told you every single step for the process.  It got as detailed as "Click File.  Click Save As.  Type in July Accounts." instead of just saying "Save this spreadsheet as July Accounts."

You can find tutorials on youtube for specific functions and other more complicated things.  I would highly recommend the book though (or something similar to it) cause it got me to the point that I stopped reading the directions because I knew what it was going to say.  I would do what I think was needed and then go check to see if I was right.  They also give you little tests and such so you can make sure you really understand what your doing.

What version of Excel do you need to know?  All of them are the same, but buttons will be in different places in 2010 then they are in 2003.

This series, on youtube, is rather slow for my taste, but so far has done a really good job explaining things.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX7zT7D9mxA
The first video, again, is really slow for my taste, but explains some of the most used features.  Around 5:50 they start creating a spreadsheet for a business, which would probably be a better way to learn Excel.

This site also has a youtube series that will teach you Excel.  Haven't looked into it much but if you listen to the course outline, you can compare it to what you already know.  Each video seems rather short so it shouldn't take a lot of time to look it over.
http://excelexperts.com/Teach-Yourself-Excel-Lesson-2-Course-Outline

[rricardi58]

I use Microsoft Excel in my job as an engineer to do calculations using formulas as well as plotting data, status reports.  It is really not that hard to do.  I pretty much learned
everything from either help menu, other workers or just trying different features.  I find the best way sometimes is to learn it the hard way by experimenting.
I find some help menus and books sometimes either to be too wordy or vague.

[masked_brown_guy]

if the youtube videos are not doing it for you then you might want to look into a Mircosoft Office
Tools class. You learn a lot with people around you doing the same thing.

[dragonxnp]

  Thank you All .. I have been playing with excel and Im kinda getting the hang of things.. But UI still get frustrated with it,.. I guess because I have a short memory span and forget the how too's very quickly. but I will continue to do it over and over and hopefully get some where by the end of the year.

[msmoneybags48]

I just saw your posting.  I am a veteran of Microsoft Excel.  Just remember one thing:  When it comes down to your formula, use =SUM(A1..F1) to add your figures.  If you are dealing with money, use the currency because if you don't, your figures will end up looking like a regular number.  Good luck my dear.