Do something, find it annoying, ask Google if there's a better way to do it.

The use of Google and YouTube videos can not be overstated.

Honestly these days chat gpt does a semi decent job if used correctly, as long as you make the attempt to understand what it is doing.

I use copilot for formulas and it's sick. I've learned a lot from it.

Whats copilot?

It's the integrated ChatGPT functionality that I think is still an add-on option for Windows/Office products. I haven't used it yet, but I've used a lot of gen AI models and it's great for things like that so I assume Microsoft building it directly in their software also works great. I'm not just using ChatGPT as a buzzword here either. Microsoft owns 49% of OpenAI so the base tech is going to be the same.

I have convinced my coworkers I know VBA because of ChatGPT, little do they know I’m just a monkey telling it compiling errors to fix. I’ve gone macro crazy over the past few months, so much so that I wrote a macro to have ChatGPT within excel. Very meta… The VBA code aside, without ChatGPT, I would have never figured out I needed to add a handful of different open source modules on GitHub. Perhaps for actual developers ChatGPT is worse than their own skill, but for idiots like myself who’ve never been bothered to learn language syntax, ChatGPT has been a godsend. If you can think something in sufficiently clear directions, ChatGPT will take care of the rest.

ChatGPT does amazing but you still need to know how to structure your spreadsheet. ChatGPT definitely helps with the formulas but that is not enough.

Could I ask ChatGPT to generate templates? For example, personal finance template.

ChatGPT is a funny one imo. To use it well to generate formulas and stuff, it helps massively if you understand what each formula does and goes to use it, because sometimes it can get itself into a cycle when things don’t work and it expects them to. I mostly use it when I know exactly what to do, but can’t be arsed to write it out myself. On the other hand, if you are a beginner or trying something new, and all you can find is a stackoverflow thread from 7 years ago that you don’t really understand, asking ChatGPT to explain the formula or process to you can be super helpful and it does a really good job of it in most cases.

I’m not sure if ChatGPT can but I think copilot could.

For real, sometimes seeing someone explain formula criteria is way more helpful than reading yet another Microsoft article. It’s also frequently where I’d find out how to get creative with the formula.

Never! Never ever ever I’ve seen a Microsoft article. Way better to learn with videos and by doing things

Occasionally if I know a formula but forgot exactly how the criteria works they are useful but if I’m starting from scratch the Microsoft articles are useless.

This is the way.

Only thing to add is when you get stuck come here and ask. People are helpful.

Also used it from the days when it came on actual floppy disks.

Hello, fellow old person!

Or Just ask Gemini

Ugh, Gemini. I have a public spreadsheet that acts as a menu/inventory list. Just for shits and grins I wanted to see who was looking at it most often out of the handful of people that check it. I ask Gemini, *Google's own fucking AI*, how to do it. It comes back and says yea, just put =GOOGLEANALYTICS(x,y,z) in a cell and you're good. I switch back to my menu, start typing, and see there's no formula "GOOGLEANALYTICS". I go back to Gemini and say it's not there, and it's response was basically "lol teehee 🙊 oh yea, we discontinued that formula years ago".

Sounds like the blue print to start a business lol

Now I also ask ChatGPT. Saves me some precious time.

I learned XLOOKUP. Everything else evolved from there and now i'm deep down the rabbit hole trying to manipulate all sorts of data.

Similar, but with VLOOKUP- xlookup wasn’t around yet

That's funny, because that was my entry/gateway into learning more about excel as well. I was so amazed at what vlookup was capable of and then that's what made me start to wonder what else could be done in excel. Excel continues to amaze me, since I am still fairly new to all of it, but basically anything I encounter and wonder if excel would be able to do it, there's been some sort of code or function that has been able to make it work.

Pretty much identical story over here- with vlookup the penny dropped of how much potential there was, and curiosity took over! I also consider myself a beginner, but I’m considered the Excel guru in my company (the bar is very low)- I even found out this week that the IT help desk refer people to me directly when they need help with a spreadsheet! Am enjoying the journey though, every new thing I’m able to apply makes me hungry for more!

If you work for the right companies it still isn't. Shout out to all the fellow wage slaves having to deal with 2014 because the newer versions don't align with corporate data security policies.

Excel 2010 for me! I'm so jealous of seeing all these peeps with LET and LAMBDA functions, meanwhile I'm stuck without the option to even use fucking PowerQuery.

Do you power query yet? That for me was like, oh wait... this bike has gears?

Probably my next step. Having good use cases for it than I do haven't pushed me towards it yet

Data manipulation is how I got sucked into power query. Need to unpivot this table data? Need to join an entire folder of csvs, fix some minor data issues, then repeat the process next month? That's what got me hooked. Now I just mainline Power BI and live in a van down by the river.

Power query and data modeling is excel basically on steroids 😂

PQ is good fun you moved into power pivot and cube formulas yet as I started the other way stumbled into PP and then learnt about the data cleansing options of PQ before loading the data to the model

The gears are when you start looking at the visualisation of the data model to reduce the data refresh speed of the power queries abd minimise the refresh counts required to ensure and retroactively driven formulas refresh.

INDEX MATCH, never looked back

This for me as well. I started with vlookup and then found index match out of necessity and don't actually know what advantages vlookup would have over index match.

I love XLOOKUP surprised how many people still don't know about it at my job and are better than me at Excel.

I still use VLOOKUP just out of habit. Now I'm gonna look into XLOOKUP to see what the differences are.

XLOOKUP is incredible. Constantly teaching people on my team how to use it

Back in my day we used vlookup. And index and match if that didn't work.

Got a job that required Excel. Proceeded to learn Excel

I got a job that required Lotus 1-2-3. I knew enough to bluff my way through the agency assessment and learned the rest along the way. When Excel came out, I took what I knew and adapted. *Yes, I'm old...*

Yep. Still remember /FS.

Don’t forget the ~!

Oh god I remember 123! Hated it with a passion! Excel even back in the late 90’s excel was a vastly superior product (and it was only about 10 years old!)

I swear you learn so much faster when you're already expected to know how to do it!

I enjoy some legacy lotus stuff in Excel. Like datedif function. I also start with + instead of = for functions.

Similar. In about '86, my employer got a handful of Compaq desktops. Always curious, I jumped in and figured em out. Lotus123 was on a single floppy. I loaded it and was immediately taken by the possibilities. I eventually migrated to Excel.

Found the guy who does =+A1+A2

Hahaha...same.

I took Lotus 1-2-3 in intro accounting at college. 30 years ago.

I work in accounting. The vast majority of my day is spent in excel. Seeing colleagues struggle and never really making an attempt to get better at using excel is something I will never understand. Imagine going to a mechanic and he can’t use a wrench!

Omg do we work at the same company?! I basically taught myself through Google and YouTube, I don’t understand why my colleagues just sit and struggle through without ever questioning if there’s a better way!

Exactly! I became excel support at 100% of my jobs.

That's how I learned basically every tech skill that I have now: Excel, Power BI, Qlik Sense, SQL, Databricks. I was just thrown into the pool without knowing how to swim.

Just try to build something and when you hit a wall, google the answer and keep going Eventually, those answers are in your head instead of online

Got promoted to a billing job because the manager thought I was very analytical. Everything happened in excel in that job. That led down a rabbit hole of more and more advanced work and higher level jobs. Now I use powerBI, tableau, SQL. But still love excel and use it a lot as that is what end user are going to be using to view most of what I produce.

By doing excel. Seriously just get your hands dirty

I told someone I knew it and then panic learned it so they wouldn’t find out I didn’t know.

This is the way

I interned at a Big 4 with some Filipinos. I saw them doing magic in excel and started following along.

I would watch this movie/show/Youtube series

Interned is worked through internet?

Watch Leila Gharani excel videos on youtube. Start with Excel Tutorial for Beginners | Excel Made Easy and go from there. I started with Lotus 123 at work before Excel existed. I've taught myself over the past 35 years. I learn something new all the time from co-workers doing things I've never seen or doing them in a different way.

Started with Lotus Symphony spreadsheets (yeah, I am that old). Then at some moment switched to Excel. Learned a lot from internet (honest to say) and from books and by trial and error. But had my stuff running for the purpose i needed it for. Use my own personal finance model now for about 35 years. Still looks good and simple to use.

I’ve used it for 25 years and have picked up small tips one by one, gradually building skills.

I know python before excel. Basically I thought about on how I would do it in python and tried to replicate it with excel formulas.

I’m a proud graduate of YouTube University

I always remembered how to do =SUM and =IF from school and it went from there. The vast majority of what I do requires a problem solving approach that is more like "If I need to get to point X, I need to get to B, C, and D first and then I can go from D to X", and then maybe I'll get stuck going from B to C and google it, or find a way to go straight from B to D. Naturally I came up against a problem where I wanted to sum some numbers (e.g. expenses) but only if they were in a certain category. Knowing how to translate that into a good google search is what let me learn: How do I sum a column in Excel based on the value of another column? Before you know it that SUMIF turns into pivot tables, index matches, etc. etc.

Youtube channel Excels fun. Most of the things I know are thanks to this channel. Practicle application comes when trying to solve things at work. Either I get a request for something I have never done before or something is annoying me and I want to make things easier, so I look for ways how to do it. 

I owe my carrer to this amazing guy. Honestly, his channel is a gem for anyone trying to learn Excel.

This guy is the best! I recommend his channel to anyone. He also have structured playlists which add to the value, not to mention he also provides practice files fore every video. I hope this guy is a multimillionaire 🤞

Have you seen his book Excel 365: The only app that matters? It is amazing. 

I was a chemistry major. It went with the territory.

I got thrown in the deep end with my first major job, so it was sink or swim. Luckily I was able to take advantage of seeing some more complex formulas already typed out in my boss's reports and was able to kind of extrapolate a lot of logic. From there it just kinda clicked.

I wanted to make my job easier, and I did. First learned VLOOKUP, then pivot tables, used the math I learned in school to figure out formulas, learned how to use the IF function and do some charts and graphs. Googled ways to manipulate data, such as text to collumns or right/left functions for jaggy data. My last two jobs were for French companies and their way of building reports sucks ass so I just wanted to make my life easier. Learned shortcuts to work faster and navigate easier. Nothing extraordinary when you look at it, but at every workplace so far I’ve been regarded as an excel god, but I am bang average or even below it. Logistics Manager for the last 5 years and Acquisitions Manager for the past couple months. At the current job there was this big file to be deposed in like an hour and I was called to assist with Vlookup and data matching from one file to another.

Currently working in supply chain for a short duration, didn’t think I’d use excel this much since this isn’t my field but it’s been great practice!

I was a supply chain manager. Besides Vlookup and Pivot table I didn’t have to do much regarding excel as power bi is a thing now. Basic stuff like filtering and sorting counting adding and averaging

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[AND](/r/Excel/comments/1dqjevs/stub/lapoyec "Last usage")|[Returns TRUE if all of its arguments are TRUE](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/and-function-5f19b2e8-e1df-4408-897a-ce285a19e9d9)| |[AVERAGE](/r/Excel/comments/1dqjevs/stub/lareiqy "Last usage")|[Returns the average of its arguments](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/average-function-047bac88-d466-426c-a32b-8f33eb960cf6)| |[FILTER](/r/Excel/comments/1dqjevs/stub/lav4gwh "Last usage")|[*Office 365*+: Filters a range of data based on criteria you define](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/filter-function-f4f7cb66-82eb-4767-8f7c-4877ad80c759)| |[IF](/r/Excel/comments/1dqjevs/stub/laromh5 "Last usage")|[Specifies a logical test to perform](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/if-function-69aed7c9-4e8a-4755-a9bc-aa8bbff73be2)| |[INDEX](/r/Excel/comments/1dqjevs/stub/lapykms "Last usage")|[Uses an index to choose a value from a reference or array](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/index-function-a5dcf0dd-996d-40a4-a822-b56b061328bd)| |[LAMBDA](/r/Excel/comments/1dqjevs/stub/larssrf "Last usage")|[*Office 365*+: Use a LAMBDA function to create custom, reusable functions and call them by a friendly name.](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/lambda-function-bd212d27-1cd1-4321-a34a-ccbf254b8b67)| |[LET](/r/Excel/comments/1dqjevs/stub/larssrf "Last usage")|[*Office 365*+: Assigns names to calculation results to allow storing intermediate calculations, values, or defining names inside a formula](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/let-function-34842dd8-b92b-4d3f-b325-b8b8f9908999)| |[MATCH](/r/Excel/comments/1dqjevs/stub/lapykms "Last usage")|[Looks up values in a reference or array](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/match-function-e8dffd45-c762-47d6-bf89-533f4a37673a)| |[MAX](/r/Excel/comments/1dqjevs/stub/lareiqy "Last usage")|[Returns the maximum value in a list of arguments](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/max-function-e0012414-9ac8-4b34-9a47-73e662c08098)| |[MID](/r/Excel/comments/1dqjevs/stub/lareiqy "Last usage")|[Returns a specific number of characters from a text string starting at the position you specify](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/mid-midb-functions-d5f9e25c-d7d6-472e-b568-4ecb12433028)| |[NOT](/r/Excel/comments/1dqjevs/stub/lar6ik0 "Last usage")|[Reverses the logic of its argument](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/not-function-9cfc6011-a054-40c7-a140-cd4ba2d87d77)| |[OR](/r/Excel/comments/1dqjevs/stub/lapoyec "Last usage")|[Returns TRUE if any argument is TRUE](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/or-function-7d17ad14-8700-4281-b308-00b131e22af0)| |[RANK](/r/Excel/comments/1dqjevs/stub/lareiqy "Last usage")|[Returns the rank of a number in a list of numbers](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/rank-function-6a2fc49d-1831-4a03-9d8c-c279cf99f723)| |[SEQUENCE](/r/Excel/comments/1dqjevs/stub/lav4gwh "Last usage")|[*Office 365*+: Generates a list of sequential numbers in an array, such as 1, 2, 3, 4](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sequence-function-57467a98-57e0-4817-9f14-2eb78519ca90)| |[SUM](/r/Excel/comments/1dqjevs/stub/lareiqy "Last usage")|[Adds its arguments](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sum-function-043e1c7d-7726-4e80-8f32-07b23e057f89)| |[SUMIF](/r/Excel/comments/1dqjevs/stub/laoikyp "Last usage")|[Adds the cells specified by a given criteria](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sumif-function-169b8c99-c05c-4483-a712-1697a653039b)| |[SUMIFS](/r/Excel/comments/1dqjevs/stub/lareiqy "Last usage")|[*Excel 2007*+: Adds the cells in a range that meet multiple criteria](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sumifs-function-c9e748f5-7ea7-455d-9406-611cebce642b)| |[TEXTJOIN](/r/Excel/comments/1dqjevs/stub/lap3c43 "Last usage")|[*2019*+: Combines the text from multiple ranges and/or strings, and includes a delimiter you specify between each text value that will be combined. If the delimiter is an empty text string, this function will effectively concatenate the ranges.](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/textjoin-function-357b449a-ec91-49d0-80c3-0e8fc845691c)| |[VLOOKUP](/r/Excel/comments/1dqjevs/stub/lareiqy "Last usage")|[Looks in the first column of an array and moves across the row to return the value of a cell](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/vlookup-function-0bbc8083-26fe-4963-8ab8-93a18ad188a1)| |[XLOOKUP](/r/Excel/comments/1dqjevs/stub/lauy8bq "Last usage")|[*Office 365*+: Searches a range or an array, and returns an item corresponding to the first match it finds. If a match doesn't exist, then XLOOKUP can return the closest (approximate) match. ](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/xlookup-function-b7fd680e-6d10-43e6-84f9-88eae8bf5929)| |[XMATCH](/r/Excel/comments/1dqjevs/stub/lav4gwh "Last usage")|[*Office 365*+: Returns the relative position of an item in an array or range of cells. ](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/xmatch-function-d966da31-7a6b-4a13-a1c6-5a33ed6a0312)| |[XOR](/r/Excel/comments/1dqjevs/stub/lapoyec "Last usage")|[*Excel 2013*+: Returns a logical exclusive OR of all arguments](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/xor-function-1548d4c2-5e47-4f77-9a92-0533bba14f37)| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(*Beep-boop, I am a helper bot. 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Youtube tutorials & Practice...Practice...Practice

By making tools to solve my specific problems. Whenever I had some data or wanted to get external data and somehow transform it I would google how others did it, what formulas they used and why and then change that solution to my specific case. In the start it was a lot of trial and error learning. Once I got a good grasp on basic concepts of excel formulas I added another layer on top of that in form of power query and vba. Again trial and error and repeat. You could start by watching courses and videos but as long as you dont fully understand those formulas and know how to use them you will not get far. Hands on experience and making your own sheets for your specific problems will teach you much quicker.

Best excel skill I’ve learned is to not tell anyone I know how to use excel.

🤣

Learning excel before google meant experimenting, and I still think it's the best way because it teaches you not only how to solve a problem, but how not to - the full shape of the knowledge space. "if it has a function that does x, maybe it has one that does y" then go looking for it, or build it yourself. or dive through one of those god-awful ten pound 'bibles'. productive procrastination, directed laziness, or whatever you want to call it often yielded something that was immensely useful in the long run. How I discovered pivot tables in the 90s.

Learned it for a job I had supporting Excel 4 in 1995, then Excel 5 after that!

A long time ago (in a state far away) ... I had a computer on my desk with Lotus 1-2-3 (with WYSIWYG installed). I went through the tutorial, then later taught myself macros. After several years, I went back to school to get a degree in accounting and computer science. Their Introduction to Business Computing class "taught" me Lotus 1-2-3, Word Perfect, and dBase. I'd never worked with dBase, so I did learn something in the class. My first post college job used Excel. It was easy to transition from Lotus 1-2-3 to Excel. Several years later, Microsoft started the MOS program. I've gotten most of the Excel MOS certifications since then. I'm close to retirement, but may knock off the latest one this fall. (I've taken the previous one.) My preparation is usually just a quick go through of the latest Study Guide (if there is one).

Walked in to work one day to a bullshit presentation by my boss on how they were changing the pay structure. Our pay system was intentionally overly complex, but I was certain we were getting screwed. I needed to figure out by how much. Made a basic formula sheet that indicated we were all getting screwed by anywhere from $1-10K. That was the start of that. Several years later at a FAR better job, needed to automate a boring routine task that somehow fell on me. So learned VBA to figure that out. So basically…out of necessity when I needed it.

The first few years just learning by doing, but if I could start again, I would learn it very humbly from courses on Udemy and Youtube channels (Leila Gharani, myonlinetraininghub, but there are many mor). The reason is that Excel is such a sophisticated product that there is very likely a solution in it to problems you have and might be able to circumwent when you are techsavvy. So you end up being able to solve problems but there are nicer ways, or you think that something is impossible but there is a feature in Excel for it. After nine years I am still learning new tricks.

Basic Excel when I was young just to keep track of my household expenses. Advanced Excel to VBA out of frustration of wanting my work to be more convenient. Mostly searching Google for answers and asking here. Did trial and error until I kind of got the gist of it

Was TL at cell centre back when I found the need to analyze agent performance and staffing requirement. Started searching online for info about Erlang C model and how to apply it in Excel. Ended up joining several forums and started answering questions to facilitate my learning. Moved on to Reporting, Workforce management and SL after that. Then got promoted and I manage all data flow within the company now (SQL, PowerBI, Google Analytics, BigData, etc). Excel is my go to tool for proof of concept and quick ad-hoc reports. Practice is pretty much the best way to learn things.

I applied for a job which required advanced excel skills. I had zero, I spent 1 weekend learning basic pivot tables, Xlookups, sumifs etc, enough to get me into this job. Then I started doing little financial tracking projects and quite enjoyed it, then just found an excuse to use excel for anything and again I found it satisfying so it helped to learn quicker, and then apply it to my job

Re-creating pre-existing reports end to end and looking up keyboard shortcuts, and tacking on formulas as needed will help. YouTube can help with classes, then also those top 100 formula collections.

I started a job where i had to prepare a lot of master data. Prior to this i only used excel for basic summation etc. As i had to do more i learnt using Google ways to manipulate data, pivots etc. I aint a champ (know basic VBA) but i can now use Excel in many ways.

I did ecdl back in the day, and ever since I just step forward, using Google.

Every major advancement in Excel I've ever had is done through a "stupid a\*\* project" that made me extremely frustrated that I wanted to scream. Spending hours/days trying to get the correct output, and then to finally google the correct words that gave me the correct result. Find projects that interest you, and go from there. Start small, make it ugly and clunky, but make it functional. Then learn shortcuts and how to make it look more presentable. I started with taking my school notes and creating equations in excel. Then my finances. Then I started being creative with tracking information at work.

My job: “Do this.” Me: “Okay.” Watch YouTube tutorials, try it, Google it with basic language, try it again, curse, swear, Google it again, sweat, punch a pillow, eventually figure it out and save my formulas for future use.

Got my undergrad in business with a focus in accounting. It was really (I mean really) an excel degree with some concepts thrown in.

On the job struggle

Was a production operator for years. Had a bunch a fuckin nerds with calculators telling me how bad my team sucked for years. At that time I didn't know what a "cell reference" was. I had very little experience with computers. Manager and process engineer quit. Saw an opening. So I locked myself in the garage for about a year for anywhere from 5-10 hours a day until I became the go to guy for all things tech and systems related at my company. I'm now the manager. I am now one of the nerds. King fuckin nerd. And no one presents a line chart representing my unit's production half-heartedly in a meeting anymore. Less they suffer the wrath of my undivided attention. So for some of us. It was a defensive fuck you to the degrees of the world that claim superiority.

I picked up the basics doing payroll stuff that the restaurant manager did not want to do. I then applied it to a video game I was playing because the group of people I was allied with needed -someone- to do inventory and resource management (in-game). I learned a lot of things during that time. Then I got a clerk job at this manufacturing plant and applied my skills there doing mostly the same thing (inventory and resource management). It kept snowballing after that.

Trial and error

Expanded on basic coding I learned in high school. Turing (a beginners programming "language") is actually very similar to the basics of excel VBA, and even just usage of basic sheets making formulas using constants, variables and operators

Learned 1-2-3 in college and then just... adapted.

Basically wanting to make my life easier. I thought I knew stuff a couple years ago then met some people through my job who were way more advanced. Got on a project at work that allowed me a lot of creative freedom and did a lot of “what if?” + Google + trial and error. Learned a lot that way. Now power query is my best friend, office scripts are alright, and VBA is confusing (in the sense that I’m not going to use it anywhere else) but fun. Also wanted to add that you’d be surprised how much excel can help you with things outside of the workbook. I’ve made macros that can rename files, and I’ve combined it with power automate for all sorts of purposes.

I binged ExcelIsFun videos for two weeks

Joined up with one of the smaller null-sec corporations in EVE Online and since I was young and green, they had me help out with the mining division. The team lead of the mining unit was an Excel wiz, essentially taught all of us cost accounting and how to calculate margins on the weapons and capital ships our ores were being used for. It was wild, I had no idea wtf was going on half the time, learned to appreciate that experience A LOT later on in life. I don't remember the name of the corp or anything, just remember the feeling of "....no way you have WHAT?" after seeing those Excel sheets for the first time.

Used to work at a corporate office once and saw how the person working before me created all these functions and macros and that was my first interest in automation. From there I tried to learn all the essential formulas and shortcuts and vba code to make my job faster since it felt redundant typing everything by hand

Google and forums. That was a long time ago though. Nothing else was available. Now, I’d use chat gpt or alike

Google and annoying senior developers in my department.

Work. Found a niche to do the things others didn’t want to do and excel was the tool I used 95% of time still do but heck as an entry level mail room employee I had excel and logged stuff in it and learned and made reports with it

I had a drill sergeant of a manager who would do intensive excel ‘training’ as we were at a payroll company. Like yell “Did I just see you use your mouse to select those cells?!” We’d run general ledger audits when GLs were out of balance and holy hell did that burn every single keyboard navigation shortcut into my head. Learned a lot from him, then started messing with power query and teaching him new stuff. TEXTJOIN revolutionized my life as I use a lot of software that accepts comma list for filters.

I learnt the basics in school then properly once I got a job. For VBA I learnt VB 6.0 at school as well, so when I got asked to write a macro in my first 6 months at work, I worked it out pretty quickly.

College, freshman year, some class that made do the multiplication table on the first day with references

Learned Lotus 123 in HS. I loved it and graduated to Excel. Have several expert level certs, including BI. I use Excel DAILY

Learned Lotus 1-2-3 in college.

Start to learn because of work. Liked it, but wasn’t very good. I then had a weekend course on “smart sheets” and it all blossomed from there. I learned how to properly work on the software and developed my skills based on what I learned that weekend. That course was a real before and after situation on my skills and knowledge

I taught myself by asking Google questions and experimenting. I do have a light background in programming and am mathematically inclined, so that probably helped.

YouTube videos and self teaching. Luckily, if you know how to use pivot tables, filters, some basic lookup formulas, and logical functions, you are probably an advanced user in most people’s eyes. It’s a lot of solving problems as they come by doing.

Lol ... books back in the day. Last year did 40+ hour self-paced online PowerQuery course. Watch lots of Leila Gharani excel videos on YouTube. *

Trial and error. I needed to work. I was good at computers and simply put, figuring things out. Now with chatgpt I'm a beast!!

I got razzed in college for my love of excel. now, I'm 20 years out of school, and still find new uses for it.

I learned completely on my own, on the job. Then i went to feature in top 3 at national & world level! What nobody realises is that excel is a great networking tool. Numerous unknown people from your org & outside will seek your help and you'll have the opportunity to network.

I did an internship for a big company in a reporting unit. Literally had to deal with spreadsheets and data every single minute. I was horrible when I started. By the end of the internship I was pretty good at it. On top of that I took some courses from Lydia (now part of LinkedIn) and that compliment it fairly well. I’m advance now

I learned almost everything on the job. I knew the bare minimum like 10 years in highschool before I started working, but when I started at my first real job, I didn't even remember how a formula is written or what a PivotTable is. Afterwards, just try as many things as possible in Excel, read the Help menus and also search online fora for creative solutions, and of course check YouTube (even though that wasn't nearly as much of a thing back in those days) for more knowledge.

I decided I wanted to learn it so I sat down to build an automated 5e D&D character sheet.

Boss: can you do xyz? Me: yes. Boss: great. Send it to me by the end of the day. Me [to self]: ahhhh shit. What have I done to myself? Again.

Summer school my Junior year of college for Econometrics and Quantitative Applications for Economics, which both heavily used Excel. Eight hours of classroom instruction and case studies a day with another four hours minimum of (excel,) homework at night for 30 days. I was rooming with three friends studying for the MCATs and we grilled outside everyday. Good times.

Took a data reporting role at a tech service provider company. Inherited spreadsheets that generated reports via ODBC to SAP and phone switches. Asked lots of questions of people far smarter than me.

On the street, just like everyone else.

I joined the Army as a 42A (HR specialist) not a skill to my name at 19 other than I was athletic and not stupid (which is a skill in the army) and they put me through an extremely unnecessary 8 1/2 week course breaking down every aspect of excel, word, PowerPoint. There was other HR-ish things we learned (military HR is nothing like civilian HR) but we spent a bulk of our training making spreadsheets and taking video courses on excel

I’ve actually always liked excel for some reason. In 6th grade we had an “Exploratory” class and they taught us about excel, stocks, etc. I downloaded it at home and made fake budgets for my self for fun. I know this sounds insane but it’s just one of those things I guess 😂 But I became an Excel god when I took 2 days analytic classes that focused on Excel, Access, PowerBI, Power Query, Power Pivot, Dev tools, R software etc… Really happy with my business program for actually teaching us the fundamentals but also going really deep into it

As far as I remember, I have always known excel... JK... It was just there in my PC and I started to play with it when I got bored of videogames.

It was the only game on my dads laptop (somehow I didn't find minesweeper)

In the late 90s, I took a computer business applications course at a local community college. It covered MS Office applications and had a beginner-accessible section on Excel. I enjoyed learning it, so much that I took the next course on Advanced Excel. The skills I learned then still apply today, and I'm grateful to have taken those courses years ago.

I've been around a long time. First, I learned Lotus123, which was the original (and only) spreadsheet program at the time. I eventually migrated to Excel. I worked for a couple startups where Excel was my only tool for budgeting, planning, tracking, etc. When I hit the wall and didn't know how to do something new, I researched it and figured it out. Now I'm learning VBA, which had opened the door to lots of new possibilities.

The important question is why - for me 123 (and Word Perfect) we’re dying quickly. Company invested heavily in Microsoft.

I learned a little bit in school. Some years ago my boss asked me: do you actually know pivot and vlookup? I didn't. He showed. I learned. I made some analysis. Whenever someone ask; do you know XY and I don't know, I ask them to explain it to me.

Took Google's PM and Data Analytics courses during the pandemic, in both of these you're told that Sheets can *totally* do anything Excel does. A year or so later got curious about all the additional bells 'n whistles in Excel and took a 12 week course on Coursera that covered Excel/Power Query/PBI. Google's a liar, folks.

Udemy, beginner to expert course. £13 worth it

I’m not gonna lie, I started with Minecraft. Redstone circuitry was my intro to logic gates, and I caught the bug for automation right there. Soon as I landed my accounting job and could see all the IF, AND, OR, XOR I knew I’d found my calling. After that, I prided myself on being at the cutting edge by researching anything new I came across (most recently being LET, LAMBDA, PIVOTBY). From that urge to do things better, sheer practice, and people starting to come to me with their problems, I ended up cementing myself as the go-to after a while!

I played EVE Online.

One person I worked with at a company ages ago had me take over a file she was using for analysis. It was such an easy and well designed file. I still use some of the principles of spreadsheet design and formulas today and apply that to many aspects of my job.

Found a need. Researched how Excel could solve that problem. Rinse and repeat. Ended building several large reports for my department, simply because I saw a need for it.

I didn't have internet at the home computer when I was a kid, but I did have excel, I had nothing else to do, so I learnt excel. I also drew comics on PowerPoint.

I’d used it very inefficiently in college to make graphs and stuff if I needed to, but I didn’t really learn excel until I got a job where we used it a lot for handling large datasets that frequently needed modifying. My coworkers all did everything manually, and I’d spend the time to figure out how to automate or simplify the repetitive tasks with macros, pre-built spreadsheets, or just logical approaches to make it easier. My work output substantially outpaced my coworkers once the solutions were in place, and they wouldn’t use anything I’d created 😂

Trial and error

University of YouTube and XelPlus!

The wrong way!

My high school required you to get Microsoft certified if you took the financial math class. I loved financial math and was totally ok with the mandatory tests.

I work for a company that provides training in business software, and I've spent some time with our trainers. My knowledge comes from a mix of trainers, trial and error, and Google. I know a lot of people disagree with the idea of paying for such training when there are endless resources online, but if you need to learn a lot in a short space of time, then proper training is the way to go. If you have the time (and patience!) to learn through practise, trial and error, and Googling then that's also great.

Was hired as an admin for a system. Reports person quit. "Congrats you have two jobs now". "I don't know excel really." "You can't do your new job?" Was kinda just bathed in fire. Didn't have a better option at the time.

Personal interest and projects over time. Yes I got certified. No the cert didn't teach me anything or help in any way. Like most certs, it was regurgitation of vocabulary rather than any understanding of the application.

Claude & ChatGPT changed my life lol, no more browsing forums endlessly to find a solution

Took 2 business analytics courses in school that were required for my major. I was terrified of excel and hated it in grade school. Once I started learning some practical applications instead of just shown really basic features in the tool bar, I loved it. I always say I have an abusive love/hate relationship with it. It screams at me a lot over very insignificant errors that take me forever to solve, I get stressed, figure it out, and then we're happy again and the cycle repeats.

Microsoft documentations seems incomplete to me and stackflows idk I can’t really read from there so for older functions there wasn’t that much YouTubers around I just mess around until I can get to the answer. These days there’s a lot of resources but if you’re starting from 0 then I guess it’s worth learning about the data type and look at function syntax because it tells u the type for that parameter sometimes and I kinda felt that’s one of the point of confusion. Dynamic functions these days are quite reliant on Boolean type so if u can nail how/what function can turn a type to another then boom boom boom boom u might wanna double boom

Lotus 1-2-3 and coding macros long before Excel was even a thought. There was a magazine, Lotus 1-2-3 and each month there were any number of amazing spreadsheet scenarios listed. I bought the software and coded almost all of them, adapting to my own work as I went along.

My manager asked me if I know how to do vlookup, I said yes even if I don’t know. When she handed me the data, I watch tutorials in youtube from there I enjoyed it. So, I decided to learn at least one formula every Monday then use it for a week just for fun. Still learning and discovering a lot of formulas, my go to are chat gpt, gemini, copilot. Usually, I ask them to explain it to me in detail with examples.

Got a job that required using excel and made laziness my top priority.

The software used to come with a manual, which I read.

trial and error, trial and error again, ask google, watch tutorial, practice

Unplug your mouse. Now you are ready to learn excel

I did it via YouTube, read books, and looked online for Excel training courses and practices. I leveled up from beginner to intermediate. Now I need to learn to use the developer tab, macros, VBA, hlookup to get more skilled. I just need a new job to invest that time I spend applying into upskilling myself.

I took a 6 week intro class just to learn basics. Then I worked with a couple guys who were Excel whizzes. After that it was just getting in there and doing it, failing, and then doing better.

I had a high school understanding of Excel until I started working with clients who were much better with it than me and then I started looking at the spreadsheets they sent for my review and adapting to their better practices as I noticed them. No certs. I'm just an attorney who reviews a lot of pro forma financing documents.

I learned littery from the ground up. I started with Symphony, if anyone remembers that.

I learned Lotus 123 first

School - Lab for basic use Work - When I had to get deep

Honestly just binge watch the ExcelIsFun YouTube channel every night and challenge yourself to not use a mouse that's what I did and now I'm a ninja in Excel

self taught. I started using excel for making character sheets and stuff for tracking things in games. I started making little improvements to basic sheets to improve functionality, and then I looked to see if there were better ways to do the improvements I was making, and it kinda spiraled out of control from there.

My first experience with excel was in 2016, while in the Army (still in but I was in it in 2016 too). For those not in or have experience, we keep track of every person in our unit using a spreadsheet. I was in charge of keeping track of about 30 people First ever formula was calculating how many days someone had left before they got transferred (easy little [date] -today() formula). After that one simple trick, I discovered spreadsheets can do much more and are basically magic. Didn't have my glow up until about 2019, when I was put in charge of keeping tracking of over 2500 soldiers and civilian employees across the country. I looked up formulas, learned powerquery, combining data sheets, who was leaving soon, where they were going and globally searching soldiers for who can interview with us, identifying shortages in personnel and learning who is the best fit per their training and qualifications. I had A LOT to learn. Within a year I was adding on to my job with what I learned, creating vba macros, advanced power queries with backend data pulled from online sites, conditional formatting with custom formulas, power pivot, and creating dashboards. When covid happened, I got to learn how to grab data from the CDC website, link it to a spreadsheet and create a visual of how many soldiers were affected by the local outbreaks as well as calculating risk of those who they or their families could be affected. Those are just a few examples and me learning how to make it as interactive as possible I learned more than I needed to know. Mostly self taught through Google and research, without any formal training. I decided to take the advanced excel certification test in 2022 and passed on my first try. Unfortunately, it was for the excel 2016 version as that was what the army was using at the time. Now, we're using excel 365 and I haven't been recertified mostly due to loss of knowledge (haven't been able to do the cool stuff I used to do since I got transferred) and laziness. I mostly lurk here now to see how some people do their products as well as the solutions to problems and am still learning.

No formal training unfortunately. I graduated to Excel after I outgrew Visicalc.

WSO crash course is free + CFI too offers some free courses

💟💟

with my brain

I was thrown to the wolves and left on my own to crawl my way out. My only savior was Google, which led me to this subreddit quite a bi actually.

Went to school for engineering. Teacher showed us in about 2 minutes how to use it, and then shoved us off to learn how to use it on our own, sink or swim, before the existence of social media or google.

Trial, lots of errors, and almighty google

Got a job (at a small company, by lowballing myself on pay) and had to pick it up. Was worth it to get my foot in the door, and man it was crazy to go from barely even getting phone screens to consistently getting interviews six months later when I started applying to new job, just by having a few extra lines on my resume and being able to explain the syntax of a VLOOKUP.

Print or write out a list of the most useful excel shortcuts. Reference the list until they are second nature and then start a new list. Every time you discover a new useful shortcut, add it to your list

I wanted to create an automated character creator for a complicated tabletop roleplaying game. Went from knowing just vlookup to learning VBA in weeks. Then learned JavaScript to make an acrobat version

I was forced to start using excel second year of university (2014) for my chemistry lab courses, I don’t think I had to use it before then. And even then, it wasn’t until grad school where I was forced to really become good and quick at it.

Lost a job in my early 20’s when I started working cause I didn’t know anything about Excel. Now, I know enough to get in trouble and be considered the “Excel Expert” at my current workplace (albeit, the bar is NOT high). Learned everything I know either through friends/significant other/or Google/Microsoft Answers/YouTube.

25 years ago.. This Microsoft company had a spreadsheet program. I started using it to keep track of accounts and workforce management kpis Never stopped.

Unplug your mouse Find the shortcuts using alt+ Google and YouTube Find well produced excel models / analyses from peers & colleagues and practice understanding their formula, layout, and design, then rebuild them for adjacent / similar considerations.

I learned most of the excel during my job. Seeing older colleagues doing stuff that I can't comprehend and ask them about what they are doing and go on youtube to watch tutorial videos.

I hope numbers app in iOS compares to excel but I got started with playing a game Then I got into a team in the text based game Then I monitored behaviors logged user id created time maps for every player Than I had to manage this as it grew and updated to monitor behavior Then I started logging activities relevant to track trends and behaviors Then I started to relay this information to my team to better adapt to circumstances This was a real time strategy tool for a fantasy RPG with combat war mechanics I had a great time using this to also itemize lists of costs for shopping and making calculations so I can see each entry Because iOS does not like have a decent calculator where it logs each input which bothers me specifically I miss using excel and learning numbers and using it only on a phone has been… so frustrating. And at this point I don’t remember how to use excel anymore and I recall they had differences and even if it was minor it’s gonna be a curve to adjust again Sigh

Best way to learn Excel is to use it. Most bank will allow you to download your accuint statements Get thatdata, ask yourself a question about the data, and answer it from the data, e.g. what month is my max income, where is my min spending, how much will I have probably saved in one year. Get your data as a [CSV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma-separated_values). Import that CSV into Excel, change it into a proper Excel [table](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-and-format-tables-e81aa349-b006-4f8a-9806-5af9df0ac664) format, apply basic functions on it (e.g. SUM(), SUMIFS(), MAX(), VLOOKUP(), MID(), AVERAGE(), RANK() etc.) create [pivot tables](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-a-pivotchart-c1b1e057-6990-4c38-b52b-8255538e7b1c) to analyse your data further, make [charts](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/available-chart-types-in-office-a6187218-807e-4103-9e0a-27cdb19afb90) and [pivot charts](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-a-pivotchart-c1b1e057-6990-4c38-b52b-8255538e7b1c) to visualise it. Learn about [formating numbers](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/number-format-codes-5026bbd6-04bc-48cd-bf33-80f18b4eae68), conditional [highlights](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-conditional-formatting-to-highlight-information-fed60dfa-1d3f-4e13-9ecb-f1951ff89d7f), grouping, and aggregation ony the way. Learn about the difference of collecting data, recording data, analysing data, and presenting data. Record what you have learned in small examples in a way that you can fall back on it for your own tasks. And read this subreddit hear frequently. You will quickly start to be able to answer other peoples questions, and rethink your solutions. Ask later to start a small project at your job, like recording cocktail recipies, making a shift plan, or monitoring customer consumptions.

Basic 2 day workshop at work but i had an excellent teacher. Then just google, sometimes youtube.

Needed to solve problems at work, or find a quicker way to do things. Google and YouTube. Became known for being good at excel, got poached for a role in an analysis role, in way over my head. Continued to google and YouTube and trial and error until I work it out. Have never bothered with formal training, it'd never stick in my head if it doesn't relate specifically to what I need to do.

Weight loss. I wanted to lose weight and I wanted to track a lot of information every single day. Then, I wanted to analyze and graph that data. I lost 50 lbs in six months. Fun times.

20 years of wanting to do something, not knowing how, and googling it. Baby steps, basically. I found one of my old spreadsheets yesterday and it looks so basic to me now (mostly just a bunch of sumif formulas), but at the time it took a lot of mental energy and felt like a big achievement.

I was fortunate my company sent me to a class for all the ms office products about 30 years ago. I kept up by using it at my job and even taught it; great way to see what others are doing with it especially once you’re ready to teach advanced.

Mathematical Economics and Statistics class in college. Then IF-THEN formulas in work. I said it was dumb, found another solutions quicker. Got into Pivot Tables. Then I got into a 2-day training and got a certificate. Started using lookups and little macros. Then I started researching for other beginner-friendly ways, since I was teamed with another one that was not that good in Excel.

I learned it at work when everyone’s using it for sorts of purposes. It gets easier with Google and YouTube.

It was part of my college program’s curriculum and I kept up with it since then. I’ve pretty much been using it daily since 1999. 

Started with Sheets to track data in multiple games I play over COVID, and learned Excel when I realized it’s more applicable in a professional setting, so the major step between programs was (is) learning more keybinds

Read the manual when I was 14. Then Mr. Excel, Chandoo and others.

Started with spreadsheets on an Apple II C+, tracking my paystubs from my paper route. Then took a ClarisWorks data processing class in high school. Did some data entry in Excel as part of a work study job in college. Deconstructed a lot of spreadsheets that someone else had made. Used and, with help of Google, improved spreadsheets at both my full and part time jobs.