Best way to self-learn Excel

[Ted Rogers]

I am trying to get my head around Excel to improve my future employment
possibilities, learning its more advanced features and hopefully VBA. What
is the best way of achieving this please? (attending a course is out of the
question as I am disabled). I have a choice of self learning via CD's
(Lynda.com or similar), books or self learning with the program helpfiles
and examples.

I would appreciate views on this and recommendations if at all possible.

Best wishes,

Ted

 

[Kassie]

Hi Ted

I suppose each person has a unique learning process. Some people can take a
book, study it and gain knowledge. Some people need to be shown how to.
Others never learn. I have discovered that the best way for me to learn, is
to grapple with something untill I understand it. I learnt myself Excel
without the help of any books or courses. What I did, was to create
scenarios, and then try to find solutions for those scenarios.

However, there are loads of books on the subject, while simply followint the
threads on this website is in itself a learning experience!

You know how you learn. Apply that and I am sure you will also get to love
Excel!

 

[PokerZan]

Ted,

"Neccessity is the mother of skill" is the motto I go by. As I come u
with projects and find solutions for them I am able to add to m
ability.

For just starting out I would look for a lesson plan either in CD o
Book from that give you projects you can actually DO as you learn.
"DOING" is the key here, to just read how do an array formula fo
instance is pretty mind boggeling, but after you have done a few the
are very logical and seem to create themselves.

I don't have any specific "programs" but thought I would chime in as t
the "type" of program that I would reccomend.

HTH,

PZa

 

[Adrian M]

The best thing about the internet is the amount of free information that is
out there. There is almost nothing about Excel that cannot be found on the
internet. If you like to learn using video clips then you are welcome to try
our site (http://www.auditexcel.co.za/training.html ) or if you prefer to
read through material there are a number of links on our site to those type
of sites. Happy learning!

 

[Ken Wright]

Personally I would get a good book, work through it steadily, and spend a
lot of time here in the newsgroups. The book will give you a structured
approach to the subject, whilst the newsgroups will give you random and
varied real-life examples that will make it more interesting. You will get
to see how different people approach the same problem, and can ask questions
one on one for anything you would like clarification on.

If I were going to recommend a book, then i would probably suggest one of
John Walkenbach's Excel Bibles, as this will not just give you VBA, but will
also give you a good grounding in the Non VBA side of Excel. There are many
many occasions where people will resort to VBA to solve something that could
be done far more efficiently with a formula or feature in Excel other than
VBA. Knowing when to use each is the real trick to be learned.

No matter what though, you are currently sat reading through what I would
personally consider the very best source of learning available. Being able
to see the examples given, try and walk through them yourself, and then be
able to post questions for clarification on bits you don't understand, to me
beats any book hollow. Get the two of them though, and it's an unbeatable
combination.

Good luck whichever you choose though.

--
Regards
Ken....................... Microsoft MVP - Excel
Sys Spec - Win XP Pro / XL 97/00/02/03

------------------------------­------------------------------­----------------
It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission
------------------------------­------------------------------­----------------

 

[Bill Ridgeway]

There's nothing like having a target to aim for. Going thorough a series of
examples and exercises from a book can be very dry and without purpose. I'm
not advising you not to look at a book. It's a very necessary evil. You
could perhaps think of a few personal goals that may inspire you to get on.
Something that, at the end of the day, will be useful to you and which you
can take some pride in saying "I done that" every time it is used. I
suppose a 'traditional' one would be to commit all you finances to a
spreadsheet and then use that to analyse income and expenditure by type and
produce some graphs. This may not be a good example for you but you are
really the best one to come up with the best idea.

Tip one is think (what you want), design (what you want) and then it will do
what you want. The best way is to start with a pen and paper with the
computer off.

Tip two is try to reduce the spreadsheet as much as possible. (No I don't
mean to make it painful to read). This approach concentrates the mind on
reducing bloat.

Tip three is not to do a job more than once. Put all the variables (e.g.
VAT rate) in one place and refer to it. This also reduces the chance of an
error (part of idiot proofing).

Tip four is enjoy a challenge.

Regards.

Bill Ridgeway
Computer Solutions

 

[David J. Braden]

In line with Bill's thoughts, I would recommend, in addition to JWalk's
books, and that by John Green et al., which are great references for
Excel-specific tasks, the books by Mike Middleton (Data Analysis), Bernard
Liengme http://www.stfx.ca/people/bliengme/ for apps (watch out, though, he
*is* Canadian <vbg>), and Conrad Carlberg's superb "Business Analysis with
Microsoft Excel"
http://print.google.com/print?id=wB...P1&printsec=0&sig=yn7v8xuVtS6kDW61vr0YKsqQ8hs

which brings sound, realistic problems to think about, using Excel as one of
your tools to solve.

And to echo what others are suggesting, these newsgroups!

Regards,
Dave Braden

ps - one of our greatest physicists, Helmholtz, said he got his best ideas
when taking walks in his local woodlands. So as you approach all of this
stuff, you might want to give yourself some time to do something different
for ideas to sink in (woodworking, gardening, slashing tires, ...). At least
for me, learning Excel *is not* like learning a programming language,
German, serious microeconomics or applied statistics (all of which I am
pretty good in). It is a sprawling product with many problems, a number of
workarounds, a lot of apps, and, happily, a broad community that can give
you inspiration and some concise solutions. Welcome!!!

 

[malik641]

I am learning excel right now because of the same reasons as you. I
bought a book on formulas and a book on VBA (go to Amazon.com or
something, they were 600 and 800 page books and I got them for about
$50 together shipped!). Just brief through the books to get a good idea
of where everything is (in the book) and scrape the surface of how
everything works. Always read the Tips too.

Other than that you should apply it. I joined 3 Excel based forums and
I check out all different questions and try to post an answer or a
whole spreadsheet as an example. It's good for practice. OR you could
join a newsgroup, I like the forums a little better, though, because
you can download any .zip files people have uploaded to the forum (who
is a registered user, at least) and I hate having a million e-mails
about who posted to a thread that you did.

But whatever you do, practice is the key. Big time. I can't begin to
tell you HOW FAST I've been learning this program (ESPECIALLY VBA).
Don't get me wrong, I've had a course or two on programming (but the
last one was 1 year ago...and it was 2 courses), but I have TONS of
learning to do.

And motivation....high motivation is excellent. My incentive? More
money for higher education, like what you're doing this for. Just have
fun doing it...I know I am!

 

[Ted Rogers]

Thank you to everyone for a fantastic response to my question, I didn't
expect such a large response

I'm going to go along the book route and work through that. Almost everyone
suggested having a goal to aim for and my goal, I guess, is to be able to
use Excel as an expert!

Thank you again for your kindness,

Ted

 

[Ken Wright]

Ted, one of the nice things about the newsgroups here is that the regulars
are generally just that, ie regular. This means that there really does tend
to be a spirit of community in the groups, and familiarity brings it's own
brand of comfort, such that you will have no hesitation in asking questions.
At the same time as you start picking things up you may well find you
actually want to start answering some questions as well, and that in itself
will give you a real incentive to get it right, and it's usually a lot more
interesting when it's real problems you are looking at as opposed to just
textbook examples.

If you want to hang around you'll find people here willing to give you all
the help you could want, and don't ever feel that there is a question you
can't ask.

--
Regards
Ken....................... Microsoft MVP - Excel
Sys Spec - Win XP Pro / XL 97/00/02/03

------------------------------­------------------------------­----------------
It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission
------------------------------­------------------------------­----------------

 

[Scudo]

Ted, I am far from an expert at excel on a scale 1-100 I am 5! The
trouble is I love playing around with it, I tried VBA but gave up as
although I could get things to work I had no further use for it and my brain
doesn`t retain info very well so I kept having to go back to the book all
the time. However a couple of years back I decided to put my home finances
on to a spreadsheet, fairly basic, then I would sit there and think "I
wonder could it do this or that" and before I new it I was developing the
spreadsheet all the time, by the time I was happy with it (several months
later) I couldn`t have told you how to do the some of the first
formulas...but I was a happy man. I then offered to do a friends business
wages, tax payments etc, eventually after a couple of months it was finished
and what was taking all day for the owner was now done in a few minutes.

I learned a lot by getting involved in it, however without NG like this one
I would never have achieved as much as I did.
I am sure there is a moral in here somewhere but don`t know what it is.

Best of luck
Scudo

 

[moochie2024]

The Shelly Cashman series is a great tool for learning excel. I have been
able to improve my understanding of excel fairly quickly with the excercises
in the text book.

 

[Route2391]

I

This is the best i seen so far everything with media player and a coff
mug!!!

got a lot of my begginer help on this site... cool
They teach you by making a, Time sheet, Invoice and cheek book fro
scratch on Windows media Player very cool

www.MDOTutorials.co