Useful Excel links
There are so many great sites out there providing training, books, tips, tutorials and information within this vast Excel universe. When I started with Excel there was basically just the manual and the odd bookshop only in CBDs with computer books, if you knew to even look. So it’s a rich world out there for learning and improving knowledge so don’t waste it.
Below are some of the more useful Excel links to blogs, tips, courses and books in no particular order that have helped me.
Excel Sites I like
| Site | Comments | Books |
|---|---|---|
| Contextures | Very strong with Pivot Tables | |
| Ozgrid | Treasure trove – one of the original Excel sites founded by Dave Hawley – time and time again I have found answers here. Excel Hacks although pre Power Query, PowerPivot & Dynamic Array formulas era, for me I found to be just ‘out of the box’ brilliant. | Excel Hacks |
| Chandoo | One of the best Excel sites out there and always has creative solutions across the whole Excel spectrum | |
| Matt Allington’s Exceleratorbi | Matt is a Power BI, Power Query and Power Pivot authority, great teach and has awesome courses and books | Supercharge Excel (practical PowerPivot & Dx learning) and Supercharge Power BI |
| Leila Gharani’s XLPlus | Leila is an awesome trainer for all levels and prolific You Tube video creator | |
| Chip Pearson’s Site | Foundational knowledge here, a treasure trove | |
| Mr Excel/ | Everything here, great blog, books and Bill’s famous short Excel podcasts | Too many to list but his VBA and macros for MS Excel is such a practical book on VBA |
| My Online Training Hub, Phil and Mynda Treacy | Even though in my training course section not only do they have fantastic training courses it is a great site for tips and also I rec kon the best newsletter out there! | |
| Oz du Soleil’s Excel on Fire | Awesome, awesome You Tube videos on Power Query, advanced formulas & all sorts of real world problem solving and always entertaining to boot | Guerrilla Data Analysis for Microsoft Excel |
| Stackoverflow Blog | Amazing resource & contributors. I find my way to it when googling for answers in VBA in particlar. | |
| Ron de Bruin’s Excel Automation | Also a treasure trove – time and time again I have found answers here. Also has good info for Excel Mac users. | |
| Chris Newman’s The Spreadsheet Guru | ||
| Jon Karel Pieterse’s jkp-ads.com | ||
| Ken Pul’s Excel Guru | Co-author of Master Your Data with Power Query is the best desktop Power Query book | |
| Analyst Cave | ||
Excel Courses I like
| Provider | Area | Link | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paul Kelly’s Excel Mastery | VBA | excelmastery.com | Paul Kelly’s Excel Macro Mastery site – If you want to learn VBA which is Excel’s macro language I think Paul Kelly’s site is without any doubt the best place to learn. VBA is a steep learning curve and I attended 2 day in person courses years ago in Brisbane that were OK but left you at a basic stage and from there it was a case of tenacity, perseverance and a lot of Googling to keep learning. I have been recently watching Paul’s webinars and YouTube videos on his You Tube channel and his style and approach to VBA is very practical, clear and aimed at you learning how to complete an application not just disjointed bits and pieces that other courses often are. He is a good teacher to start with and really knows his craft and teaches very sound, professional programming habits so you are more efficient in writing macro code. So I think his material is a much, much better start to learning VBA than I ever had access to and will really allow you to fast track the steep, sometimes painful but eventually rewarding VBA learning curve. Access to his course material and manual is less than the cost of 1/2 of a day in person training. |
| Skillwave Training | Power Query / Power BI | https://skillwave.training/ | Ken Pulls and Miguel Escobar authors of the fantastic Power Query desktop book “Master Your Date” also joined by Matt Allington present very clear & comprehensive courses on Power Query & Power BI. You can try their courses by subscribing to their free Power Query Fundamentals. |
| My On Line Training Hub | All areas of Excel. Power Query, PowerPivot and Power BI | https://www.myonlinetraininghub.com/ | Mynda & Phil Treacy’s awesome training site. These courses are for all levels of Excel users from beginner to advanced and they are no no nonsense style courses that get you up to speed quick. Also her Dashboard approach is fast and I saw Mynda do a dashboard in an hour at a seminar in Brisbane, fantastic stuff. |
Excel Tools & Add-Ins I like
| Site | Comments | |
|---|---|---|
| Pup Tools | PUP Tool’s – John Walkenbach’s PUP (Power Utility Pak) Tools is one of my staple Add-Ins. John is a legendary figure and I would say pioneer in The Excel World with countless books and a treasure trove website. PUP Tools is a really fantastic Add-In with tools and utilities to help in so many ways including the Worksheet Summary Report to help you come to grips with an existing legacy spreadsheet. Plus copying without changing any relative cell addresses. Many more. This was only US$40 last time I looked and for a bit more he will give you the VBA code which makes for some powerful learning. I used to have a direct link but John’s site has changed recently so this one you will have to Google 🙁 | |
| MZ Tools | For VBA Programmers I just find this the best tool. It helps in so many ways and if you write a lot of code as soon as you use it you will see what I mean. It helps you collect and re-use code snippets or full procedures, document your modules or procedures, splits or re-joins lines effortlessly and much more. The expand keyword feature saves time and helps memory. I really enjoy using it and after having exchanged ideas with the developer Carlos, I know it’s only going to get better. | |
| Kanban Tool | Not an Excel tool but it can really help with complex Excel projects or process management using the Kanban management technique. Really wonderful tool that is just so configurable. See my blog post on this one. | |