Microsoft excel

[smashin]

Anyone here a power user of excel? What did you do to hone your skills?

I want to practice and get competent with skills like writing macros and advanced functions but never get the chance to use excel much at work. I want to make a career change and excel is a core skill unfortunately.

The best way is to find someone who can do the things you want to do, and get them to show you how. Could you organise this as a development exercise at work?

Otherwise, there are lots of online tutorials - this, plus trial and error, is a way of getting there in the end, I've found.

I always think it's difficult without having a problem to solve.

Macros are pretty easy you just record them!

You can learn a lot just by playing with it. Download an interesting csv file from somewhere (eg Kaggle, Data.World, British Library), and then play with it.

Try out the functions, use a simple formula, concatenate text in a new column, drop bits of text you don't want using the trim function. Use the sum function, play with the formatting, try out conditional formatting to spot duplicates. From there, try out summarising your data with v lookups.

If you think there may be a cleaner or shorter way of doing something, google it. I'm still learning new features of Excel as I need them, and I've been using it for many years.

YouTube has loads of tutorials that might be helpful?

What did you do to hone your skills?
I was quite fortunate because I used it at work.

There are loads and loads of Websites and YouTube videos (of various qualities) available.
Keep trying them until you find some that you like i.e. their approach, explanation (and accent!) to Excel.

Advanced functions - Excel itself has a very good help system and there's lots of examples online.
Writing macros is quite advanced. It's whole subject in itself. I find examples of other Macros online and amend then for my use.
Good Luck.

have a look at thecheatsheets on Instagram for tips

Linked in learning is good but I learned on the job and self teach from Google/ you tube mainly

LinkedIn Learning is fab for tutorials.

For macros, start with the recorder—it’s a simple way to see the VBA code and tweak it to fit your needs. Functions like VLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH, and SUMIFS are great for real-world data. I practiced by grabbing data sets from Kaggle or making up scenarios instead of waiting for work projects.
If you want more structured guidance, Excel Books has solid recommendations, covering everything from basic formulas to advanced VBA. It’s a great place to build up your skills.

The ‘for dummies’ handbooks are good but I find I learn best from playing - either reworking existing spreadsheets to be more efficient , developing new ones or just imagining scenarios to try and expand skills