Microsoft Excel Introduction Training

This course is designed for students with little to no experience using spreadsheet applications. It assumes no prior Excel knowledge of any kind — no formulas, no shortcuts, nothing.

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

• Get comfortable navigating the Excel interface, build a worksheet from scratch, and use Excel's built-in Help system to find answers on their own
• Write formulas by hand and use built-in functions instead, so calculations don't have to be rebuilt manually every time
• Reuse an existing formula or function across a worksheet rather than recreating it cell by cell
• Insert, delete, and rearrange cells, columns, and rows, and move or edit existing data without starting over
• Track down and correct specific data using Find and Replace, and catch typos with the built-in spell checker
• Apply fonts, colors, borders, number formats, alignment, and built-in cell styles to turn a plain worksheet into something readable at a glance
• Set up and refine a workbook's page layout and control exactly what prints, down to the page
• Rename, format, and reorganize worksheet tabs, and control how worksheets and workbooks are viewed and compared side by side

Introduction to Microsoft Excel

What a spreadsheet is and what it's used for · Opening Excel and getting oriented to its layout · Navigating an Excel workbook · Using the Help feature · Setting basic program options and saving files · Customizing the Quick Access Toolbar

Hands-on exercise: Students explore the Excel interface in a sample company workbook, use ScreenTips and the Search feature to track down specific commands, create and save a new workbook using real sales data, and use Excel's Help system to look into a command they haven't used before.

Entering Data and Performing Calculations

Entering text and numbers into cells · Editing, deleting, and moving data · Writing a basic formula by hand · Using built-in functions, including the Insert Function box, as a faster alternative to manual formulas · Formula shortcuts, including Auto-Fill and absolute references

Hands-on exercise: Students enter new product data into a workbook, then build formulas and use functions to calculate total, average, and highest and lowest sales figures for a sales team — and reuse those same formulas and functions to complete the calculations for the rest of the team.

Formatting

Formatting text, including the Format Cells dialog box · Applying number formats · Adding and removing colors and borders on cells · Basic and rule-based conditional formatting · Applying built-in cell styles and themes

Hands-on exercise: Students format a sales report worksheet end to end — applying text and currency formatting, aligning cell contents, applying cell styles to visually separate raw data from calculated results, using conditional formatting to flag top and bottom performers, and saving the finished worksheet as a reusable template.

Organizing Your Worksheet

Adjusting the worksheet layout, including changing or removing rows and columns · Merging and centering cells · Adding, removing, renaming, moving, and copying worksheets · Using Find and Replace · Spell checking a worksheet

Hands-on exercise: Students adjust column widths and hide unneeded columns in a sales report, use Find and Replace to update records and locate blank cells, run a spelling check before a presentation, and rename and format worksheet tabs across a workbook covering multiple regions.

Managing Worksheet Views and Workbook Properties

Creating a Custom View to save display and print settings for a worksheet · Splitting a worksheet into multiple panes to view different sections at once · Freezing panes so key rows or columns stay visible while scrolling · Adding workbook properties, such as author, category, and custom tags, to make files easier to identify and search

Hands-on exercise: Students compare data across two open workbooks side by side, freeze panes so column headings and key identifying data stay visible while scrolling through a long worksheet, and add workbook properties — including a custom tag — to make a file easier to find among many similarly named ones.

Printing and Exporting

Setting up the page layout, including page margins and scaling the printout · Adding headers and footers · Printing a worksheet, including Print Preview and the Print Titles feature · Creating a PDF or XPS file

Hands-on exercise: Students preview and configure a print job, set a print area and repeating column labels, adjust page breaks, and add headers and footers with a date, title, and page numbers.

Students attending this course should have experience using a PC and navigating the Windows environment.

For a true beginner, the hardest part of learning Excel usually isn't any one feature — it's not knowing where to look, or getting stuck on something small that a video has no way of clarifying in the moment. In this course, an instructor is right there to answer those questions as they come up, so a five-second point of confusion doesn't turn into ten minutes of guessing.

Students also retain up to one year of access to a recording of the class and six months of post-class instructor support. That matters most for a foundational course like this one, since the real test of these skills isn't the day of class — it's the first time you sit down with your own spreadsheet afterward.