What Is Excel? Formulas, Functions, and More

Microsoft Excel can be an incredibly powerful tool to learn for your career, with benefits for everyone from data analysts to social media marketers. It allows the everyday user to create charts, graphs, and more to organize and visualize data. 

Learn what Excel is and does, what formulas and functions to know, and some resources to help you begin.

What is Excel, and what is it used for?

Excel is part of Microsoft’s 365 suite of software, alongside Word, PowerPoint, Teams, Outlook, and more. Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program that allows users to organize, format, and calculate data in a spreadsheet. Excel users can create pivot tables and graphs to help them compute and visualize complex data sets. 

Excel vs. Google Sheets: What’s the difference?

Excel and Google Sheets offer similar capabilities and features. The main difference is that Google Sheets offers a free version in which several users can edit the document simultaneously, which makes it convenient for real-time collaboration. When you share your Google Sheets link with others, they can then edit the file.

Excel applications: Documents you can create in Excel

You can do a lot of tasks with an Excel spreadsheet. A few common documents you can create include:

• Balance sheet

• Budget

• Calendar

• Data report

• Form

• Income statement

• Invoice

• Mailing list

• Planning document

• Timesheet

• To-do list

All of these documents can be applied to your business or personal life. Excel is a versatile tool that can help you stay organized and calculate important information. 

How to use Excel

When using Excel, you’ll want to be sure to know the basics of a spreadsheet program. Once familiar with its interface and features, you can add data to the cells or create a document by formatting them to your liking. Then, you can learn formulas and functions to calculate sums of money, for example, or the number of products needed for a launch.

Basics of Excel

When you’re starting out with Excel, you can start by learning basic commands.

• How to create a new spreadsheet

• How to format column or row text and titles

• How to add, subtract, multiply, and divide numbers in two or more cells

• How to add or delete columns, rows, and pages (within the same spreadsheet)

• How to sort your data

Once you’ve got the basics down, you can start to learn the different Excel formulas to help you compute data.

Excel formulas

There are many formulas available in Excel that you can use to work with data. Each formula in Excel begins with an equal sign. Before you create a formula, you’ll need to write an equal sign (=) in the cell where you want the formula’s result to appear.

The basic formulas are:

• Add: To add the values of two or more cells, use the plus (+) sign.

  • Example: =A4+D5

• Subtract: To subtract the values of two or more cells, use the minus (-) sign.

  • Example: =A4-D5

• Multiply: To multiply the values of two or more cells, use the asterisk (*). 

  • Example: =A4*D5

• Divide: To divide the values of two or more cells, use the forward slash (/). 

  • Example: =A4/D5

You can use parentheses to create a large formula that combines these actions. Example: =((A4+C4)/(D5-C5)*3).

What are the five basic functions of Excel?

On Excel, you can use functions to automate tasks you normally use in a formula. You can use the SUM function instead of using the plus sign to add a range of cells. Let’s go through a few popular functions:

1. SUM: The SUM function adds up a range of cells. To input the function, use parentheses to indicate the range of cells. If you are summing up the numbers in cell A1 through A17, your formula would be: =SUM(A1:A17).

2. AVERAGE: Similar to the SUM function, the AVERAGE function calculates the mean of the values of a range of cells. For example: =AVERAGE (A1:A17).

3. IF: With the IF function, you can ask Excel to return values based on a logical test. The syntax looks like: IF(logical_test, value_if_true, [value_if_false]). For example: =IF(A1>B1,”Over Budget”,”OK”).  

4. VLOOKUP: The VLOOKUP function allows you to search for anything in your spreadsheet’s columns or rows. The syntax looks like: VLOOKUP(lookup value, table array, column number, Approximate match (TRUE) or Exact match (FALSE)). For example: =VLOOKUP([@Engineer],tbl_Engineers,7,TRUE).  

5. COUNTIF: The COUNTIF function is another useful one that returns the number of cells that meet certain criteria. The syntax looks like: COUNTIF(range, criteria). For example: =COUNTIF(A1:A17,”San Francisco”).

How to learn Excel quickly 

You can use Google Sheets tutorials to learn more about using Microsoft Excel because the programs are very similar. Build your skills in the most common actions with these tutorials:

• How to Alphabetize in Google Sheets (+ How to Sort by Date)

• How to Merge Cells in Google Sheets

• How to Highlight Duplicates in Google Sheets

• How to Use Conditional Formatting in Google Sheets

• How to Add in Google Sheets: SUM and MINUS Formulas

• How to Concatenate in Google Sheets (Combine Cells without Losing Data)

• How to Use VLOOKUP in Google Sheets

• How to Use SUMIF in Google Sheets

• Using IMPORTRANGE to Reference Another Google Sheet

• How to Fix Formula Parse Error: Google Sheets

Excel guided projects

In your journey to using Excel, you may want to learn specific skills that will help you on the job while working with data or creating a budget. Explore short, one or two-hour guided projects to get started.

• Introduction to Microsoft Excel

• Using Basic Formulas and Functions in Microsoft Excel

• Introduction to Data Analysis using Microsoft Excel

• Create Charts and Dashboards Using Microsoft Excel

• Creating a Budget with Microsoft Excel

• How to Use Lookup Reference Math and Text Functions in Excel 

Who needs to know Excel?

Excel is applicable to nearly every industry, from finance to project management to marketing and beyond. Food service managers can use it to track invoices, and social media associates can use it to consolidate multiple MailChimp mailing lists. 

It’s most pertinent to those in careers that work daily with data, such as data analysts, marketing managers, accountants, and business owners. However, teachers, non-profit professionals, and social workers may also find Excel useful for organizing information and creating charts or graphs in their everyday work. 

Excel for data and business

If you’re embarking on a career in data or business analytics, you may be interested in IBM’s Excel Basics for Data Analysis and Johns Hopkins University’s Business Analytics with Excel: Elementary to Advanced. Both require less than 24 hours to complete.

Learn Excel today

You can use Excel for a range of different applications, and learning Excel formulas can help you make the most of the program. Coursera offers several options for learning how to use Excel. If you’re learning Microsoft Excel for a job or even for personal use, consider taking Microsoft’s course Work Smarter with Microsoft Excel, which is part of their Microsoft 365 Fundamentals Specialization.

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Work Smarter with Microsoft Excel

This course is intended for learners with some experience using Microsoft Windows, who are seeking to build presentation skills with Microsoft Excel. To be ...

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Critical Thinking, Data Analysis, Spreadsheet Software, Data Visualization, Accounting, Databases, General Accounting

If you’re specifically interested in learning Excel for business, enroll in Macquarie University’s highly-rated course Excel Skills for Business Specialization. With both courses, you can learn at your own pace and build your skills on your computer—anytime, anywhere.