Excel for beginners: the 20 skills to learn first

The short answer

If you learn twenty things in Excel, learn these. They cover the large majority of what people actually do in spreadsheets, and they are in the order that makes each one easier than the last.

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The first five: moving and seeing

1. Keyboard navigation. Ctrl+arrow jumps to the edge of a block of data. Ctrl+Home goes to A1. Add Shift to select as you go. This alone changes how fast you work in a long sheet.
2. Selecting properly. Click a column letter for the whole column, Ctrl+A inside a data block for the block. Learn the difference between selecting cells and selecting a range with headers.
3. Number formats. A date is not text, and a percentage is not the number 0.15 typed as 15. Ctrl+1 opens Format Cells, which is where most formatting confusion ends.
4. Freezing headers. View, Freeze Panes, Freeze Top Row. There is a full guide to freezing rows and columns if you want the rule behind all the options.
5. Undo and the version history. Ctrl+Z, and knowing that files saved to OneDrive or SharePoint keep a version history you can roll back to.

The next five: formulas that pay for themselves

6. Cell references. A1 is relative and shifts when you copy the formula. $A$1 is absolute and does not. This is the most important idea in the whole program.
7. SUM and AVERAGE. Including the AutoSum button and the status bar total at the bottom of the window, which answers most quick questions without a formula at all.
8. IF. =IF(B2>100,"Over","Under"). One decision, two outcomes. Everything conditional builds on this.
9. COUNTIF and SUMIF. Count or add only the rows that meet a condition. This is where a sheet stops being a list and starts answering questions.
10. IFERROR. Wraps a formula so a missing value shows a blank or a message instead of #N/A. Reports look far more finished with it.

Six to eleven: handling real data

11. Sort. Including multi-level sorts, so you can order by region and then by value inside each region.
12. Filter. Ctrl+Shift+L. Filter by value, by color, by text contains. Half of data analysis is looking at one slice at a time.
13. Format as Table. Ctrl+T. Brings filters, banded rows, automatic ranges and structured references such as Sales[Amount] instead of C2:C900.
14. Remove duplicates and find duplicates. Two different jobs, both common. Start with highlighting duplicates before removing anything.
15. Text to Columns. Splits Smith, Jane into two columns. Also the quickest fix for numbers that arrived as text.
16. TRIM and CLEAN. Removes the invisible spaces that make two identical-looking values refuse to match.

The last five: the ones people call advanced

17. XLOOKUP (or VLOOKUP). Pull a value from another table by matching an ID. The single most asked-for Excel skill in job listings. XLOOKUP is easier if your version has it.
18. Pivot tables. Summarize thousands of rows with a few drags. Genuinely one of the easiest big features to learn and the one that saves the most time.
19. Conditional formatting. Color scales, data bars, and rules that highlight what needs attention. Makes a sheet readable at a glance.
20. Charts. One chart type per question. Our guide to creating charts covers picking the right one.

Nobody learns all twenty in a week, and nobody needs to. Get the first ten solid and the rest arrive faster than you would think, because they are built out of the same ideas.

How to practice so it sticks

Watching an Excel tutorial feels like learning, in the same way watching someone else swim feels like exercise. The transfer happens when you use your own data.

Pick a real task: a budget, a list of orders, a sign-up sheet. Rebuild it using the skills above, in order, and let yourself get stuck. Microsoft's Excel help and its training templates are good places to check syntax when you do.

When not to enroll yet

If you only ever open a spreadsheet twice a year to check a number, none of this is urgent. Learn item 6 (references) and stop there.

If you want the whole thing in order with practice files, the introduction course starts at a blank sheet, the Excel certificate covers the advanced half, and one subscription opens both plus every other course in the Business & Productivity school.

Twenty skills sounds like a lot. It is about two weekends, and it lasts the rest of your career.