How did you become a whizz at Excel / Access and macros and stuff.

[suggestedx]

I know how to use the basics of excel and not really much if Access and want to learn how to do to macros, set up databases and buttons that you can press that do stuff!
I know I'm being quite vague but I would really like to learn.

How did you learn if you are really good with spreadsheets and databases? Is it just on the job, messing about with it, courses, books?

Thanks

I had an interview recently and wanted to brush up on my excel skills for the assessment. I would recommend the free Udemy courses. They do lots depending on your level and what you’d like to learn.

Is it just on the job, messing about with it, courses, books?

A combination of all those. When Excel was first introduced, I bought 'Excel for Dummies' and I've done various courses through Linked In learning and similar. I've probably learned the most from simply asking 'How do you do that?' when I've seen someone produce something I want to replicate.

On the job, trying things out (god bless the undo button!), colleagues, Google and YouTube.

Thank you all for your replies. Looks like an online course of some sort will be the best option. I have started a new role and am using some really interesting spreadsheets and an Access database which got me thinking "wow, I didn't know you could do that!" Pretty sad I know but it got me wanting to learn how to do it myself. When I asked my manager who created them, she told me that it was all created a while back by an ex- colleague who had now moved on but they have continued using it. So unfortunately I don't really have anyone that knowledgeable to help me at work.

The free courses on udemy look good MrsLeclerc I'll have a look through later.
Another reason I'd like to improve my skills is that there's a job coming up in the near future and I know that there will definitely be an excel and word test as part of the interview process. I have no idea if it'll be really technical or simple like sorting data / simple equations etc.

YouTube, loads on there teaching stuff

The ECDL is a good course!

I did the ECDL, which forced me to learn the basics, then learnt by doing, and asking people specific questions when I couldn't work out how to do something, and couldn't find a YouTube video on it.

I am massively more proficient with Excel than Access now, having done loads of spreadsheets and extracted tables and graphs for reports and presentations on a regular basis. I can look at Access, but someone else tends to do the work with it, so I have now lost most of the skills I learnt for the ECDL.