Excel Training For Newbies

Answer 1

Excel has been the most popular spreadsheet application for well over ten years, yet many users of Microsoft Office avoid it like the plague. A word processing program is nothing more than a modern typewriter for many of us, but blank graphs that move in strange ways when you try to plant numbers in the little boxes can be very intimidating to those trying to use a spreadsheet for the first time. So where should a newbie turn for Excel training?

Software documentation has been notoriously poor for decades, and Microsoft is no exception to that rule. “Back in the day” anyone interested in learning a complex software program paid a visit to a local book store to peruse the many third party training manuals and reference offerings. There was a huge market for this kind of training and in 1991 an entrepreneur named Dan Gookin introduced the now famous “For Dummies” series of instructional manuals. Today, the internet has become a major resource for educational instruction of all kinds, including Excel training.

Enter “Excel training” into your favorite Internet Search Engine and you’ll find plenty of places to investigate for Excel training. The Microsoft web site offers some online training, but it is geared more towards those who already have a basic understanding of the program. Other sites offer introductory courses, many of them free. Do your homework as some of these freebies are actually teasers; bare bones versions that ask you to sign up for a more extensive course in a paid version. Even if free, you will be making a significant investment of time into an online Excel training so try to choose wisely. Some sites offer user reviews of their training products. For paid training programs, check out Amazon.com where you’ll find many interactive CD and DVD based training programs. More importantly, you’ll find reviews from customers who have actually used the products.

Finally, there’s still a lot to be said for investing in an old fashioned print version of a training or reference book. Excel is a complex program and one of the problems with any training on a complicated subject is forgetting what you learned in the training program when you need to do something later. It’s not very practical to be running back to an online tutorial every time you need help. Print documentation still has its place, and a thorough reference work for a program like Excel still merits a spot on your shelf.