Excel Essentials - Boost your efficiency and save time

Learn Excel 2013 basics: identify the active cell, highlight columns or rows, build an items table with items, amount, and price per item, and understand how empty rows define tables.

Master mass insertion in Excel by using the fill handle and auto-fill patterns to quickly generate sequences, dates, and text across tables and entire sheets.

Learn to organize Excel data by sorting text and numbers, freezing panes to keep headers visible, adding and renaming sheets, inserting columns and rows, and applying merge, color, and formatting.

Apply borders to a table and choose border styles to clearly define data. Format cells as currency, adjust decimal places, and select symbols such as pounds or euro.

Explore core Excel functions such as sum, average, max, min, and counta while learning to insert formulas, drag to fill, and understand relative addressing for real-time results.

Learn to build custom Excel formulas with relative addressing, using operators for multiplication, division, and exponent, and format results as currency or date.

Master absolute addressing in Excel by anchoring references with dollar signs so formulas stay correct when copied, and totals adjust automatically with tax rate changes.

Learn to adjust text orientation in Excel by rotating text to preferred directions, specifying degrees, and using format cells options like alignments, wrapping, and merging.

Explore creating a simple chart in Excel by selecting data, inserting a recommended chart, and adjusting basic elements such as the title, axis, and type.

Master page layout, margins, and orientation in Excel to control how worksheets print, and insert headers and footers with print previews, dates, and page numbers.

Learn how to repeat header rows on every printed page using page layout’s print titles, selecting the top row to repeat, and add borders to print.

Visualize data quickly with conditional formatting in Excel, using color scales, data bars, and custom formats to highlight high and low values, duplicates, and trends.

Learn how to split an Excel sheet horizontally and vertically, create four panes, and remove splits, then quickly hide and unhide rows, columns, and sheets using format options and right-click.

Learn to use essential Excel date and time functions, such as day, today, year, and now, via the insert function tool, to extract dates and compute with confidence.

Master rounding functions in excel essentials, using round, round up, and round down to control digits, with examples and a preview of if-else conditional logic.

Master Excel's sumif and countif to total sales by item, using range and criteria, and identify blank cells.

Explore how the rank function in Excel returns a number’s position within a list, using descending or ascending order, and how it handles ties with conditional formatting for student scores.

Master Excel text functions to convert values to text with custom formats, extract characters with left and right, trim spaces, and build strings using concatenate for date and number formatting.

Learn to use Excel's future value function to project savings growth under a constant rate, comparing annual investments with lump-sum deposits to see how timing affects final value.

Demonstrate using PMT to calculate monthly loan payments and PV to determine affordable loan amounts, with examples on interest, terms, and total cost.

Model a bank loan in Excel by calculating monthly payments with pmt, breaking down interest with ipmt, and building an amortization schedule for a 100,000 loan over 30 years.

Master hlookup and vlookup to retrieve data from horizontal and vertical tables, using table arrays and range_lookup false for exact matches, noting xlookup limitations in 2013.

Explore Excel's database functions, using criteria to filter by region and compute sum, average, max, and count for selected data, with examples like central and east regions.

Learn to use excel logical functions—if, and, or—where true equals one and false equals zero, and test conditions like total with tax more than 500 and unit more than 100.

Master nesting functions in Excel by using nested if examples, combining average, sum, and conditional formatting to flag expensive items and filter by color or text.

Link formulas across multiple sheets to calculate data, sum Monday to Friday, and aggregate into the week, using the shift key to select continuous cell ranges B2 to B12.

Learn to format charts in Excel by editing chart and plot areas, applying gradient fills, adjusting axes, adding data labels, legends, and converting to a combo chart with secondary axis.

Master pivot charts in Excel by linking pivot tables to pivot graphs, exploring design options, and filtering data for items, regions, and clients, then refreshing data for accurate visual insights.

Use a data table to vary the loan term and compare monthly payments without editing the base data. Set up the column input and apply what-if analysis using data tools.

Master advanced sorting in Excel by using custom sort to organize data by item and client name with multiple levels, while leveraging table headers for accurate sorting.

Sort your data, then add subtotals by item to automatically calculate totals, showing three levels and item totals like brush, eraser, and felt pen.

Explore Excel scenarios with the scenario manager to compare how changing cells affect monthly payments and total pay across 8-year, 10-year, and 20-year loan scenarios.

Explore data validation in Excel to enforce whole number ranges, set input messages and stop errors, and circle invalid data to ensure data integrity between 100 and 500.

Control formulas, validate data, and show formulas in Excel to spot errors before publishing, while using relative and absolute references and adding comments for the next user.

Learn how to name cells and ranges in Excel with the name manager, creating names like tax amount and cells, and use them across worksheets and pivots.

Import CSV or text data into Excel by selecting the delimiter semicolon, confirm headers, place data on a worksheet, and create basic calculations like price times amount.

Create, record, and use macros in Excel by customizing the ribbon to access the Developer tab, automate repetitive tasks, and boost efficiency.

Learn to share and merge Excel workbooks for collaborative editing and how to encrypt a workbook with a password, including removing the password later.

Learn to password protect Excel workbooks and worksheets, set read-only or modify passwords, lock cells, and protect/unprotect sheets to keep data secure and unchanged.