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The FormulaDojo Excel course

Six stages, from clicking your first cell to lookups and data tools. Each lesson is a short guide and a set of exercises in a real sheet, in your Excel’s language.

Start lesson 1
lessons available now
51
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Excel languages
5

  1. Start here

  2. Sums & counts

  3. Logic & text

  4. Lookups

  5. Numbers & dates

  6. Data tools

Points, belts and streaks

01Start here

02Sums & counts

03Logic & text

04Lookups

05Numbers & dates

06Data tools

The dojo

Free accountPremium
  1. 1Intro to Excel
  2. 2First formulas
  3. 3Move with the keyboard
  4. 4Select with the keyboard
  5. 5AutoSum & fill shortcuts
  6. 6Absolute references
  7. 7Percentages
  8. 8Project: household budget
  9. 9SUM
  10. 10AVERAGE
  11. 11MIN & MAX
  12. 12SMALL, LARGE & MEDIAN
  13. 13COUNTA & COUNTBLANK
  14. 14SUMIF
  15. 15SUMIFS
  16. 16COUNTIF
  17. 17COUNTIFS
  18. 18SUMPRODUCT
  19. 19Project: monthly sales report
  20. 20IF
  21. 21AND & OR
  22. 22Nested IF & IFS
  23. 23SWITCH & XOR
  24. 24IFERROR
  25. 25ISBLANK, ISNUMBER & ISTEXT
  26. 26CONCATENATE
  27. 27TEXTJOIN & CONCAT
  28. 28LEFT, RIGHT & MID
  29. 29TRIM & cleaning text
  30. 30TEXT
  31. 31Project: clean a customer list
  32. 32VLOOKUP
  33. 33HLOOKUP
  34. 34XLOOKUP
  35. 35MATCH
  36. 36INDEX + MATCH
  37. 37Work across sheets
  38. 38Project: order invoice
  39. 39ROUND
  40. 40CEILING & FLOOR
  41. 41TODAY & dates
  42. 42DATEDIF
  43. 43EOMONTH
  44. 44NETWORKDAYS
  45. 45Project: project schedule
  46. 46Drop-down list
  47. 47Conditional formatting
  48. 48Tables
  49. 49FILTER
  50. 50Pivot table
  51. 51Project: sales dashboard
  • Every exercise you solve earns 10 points, or 15 if you get it on the first try without a wrong answer, hint or solution.
  • Points earn belts, from white to black, like in a real dojo.
  • Solve 3 exercises a day to reach your daily goal, and practise every day to grow your streak.
  1. White beltfrom 0 points
  2. Yellow beltfrom 50 points
  3. Orange beltfrom 120 points
  4. Green beltfrom 200 points
  5. Blue beltfrom 300 points
  6. Brown beltfrom 420 points
  7. Black beltfrom 560 points

How each lesson works

A real sheet, not a video

Every lesson runs in a working spreadsheet in your browser. You click cells, type formulas and press Enter, just like at work.

Mistakes, explained

Typed the result instead of a formula? Used the wrong function? You’re told what went wrong and how to fix it, not just “incorrect”.

Your Excel, not ours

Excel changes its function names, separators and error codes with the language and region of your computer. FormulaDojo follows yours, and converts formulas you copied from somewhere else.

Every lesson in the course

Each lesson has a short guide and a practice set. Follow the stages in order, or jump straight to the function you need.

Start here

Never used Excel? Start here: cells, references and your first formulas, one small step at a time.

  • Intro to Excel

    Start here if you have never used Excel.

    5 exercisesFree, no account

    GuidePractice

  • First formulas

    Put the basics to work on a small order sheet: multiply, copy down, total, average and round.

    5 exercisesFree with an account

    Practice

  • Move with the keyboard

    Stop scrolling: jump to the end of a column, the end of a row, the last used cell and back to A1 in one key press.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • Select with the keyboard

    Select a few cells, a whole column of data, a table, a row or a column without touching the mouse.

    6 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • AutoSum & fill shortcuts

    Total a budget without typing a single formula: AutoSum, fill right, and copy and paste.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • Absolute references

    Five exercises, from locking one rate to filling a whole quote grid with a single formula.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • Percentages

    Five exercises, from a product’s share of total sales to finding a price before tax.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • Project: household budget

    Build a real six-month budget step by step: add up the expenses, see what is left, put savings aside at a fixed rate and find out how much of your income you spend.

    7 exercisesPremium

    Practice

Sums & counts

Add up, average and count the numbers in a table, with or without a condition.

  • SUM

    Five exercises, from your first total to a running total.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • AVERAGE

    Five exercises, from your first average to comparing a team against its average.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • MIN & MAX

    Five exercises, from finding the highest order to capping a bonus copied down a column.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • SMALL, LARGE & MEDIAN

    Five exercises, from the second-best sale to comparing carriers with the median.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • COUNTA & COUNTBLANK

    Five exercises, from counting replies to finding the missing fields of every customer record.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • SUMIF

    Ten exercises, from your first conditional total to a full summary table.

    10 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • SUMIFS

    Five exercises, from your first two-condition total to a summary table.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • COUNTIF

    Ten exercises, from your first COUNTIF to wildcards, blank cells, criteria built from cells and duplicate checks.

    10 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • COUNTIFS

    Five exercises on a support ticket list, from your first two-condition count to a full priority-by-channel grid.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • SUMPRODUCT

    Five exercises, from your first quantity × price total to a summary table by region.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • Project: monthly sales report

    Turn a quarter of raw orders into a report a manager can read: key figures first, then sales and orders per region, then a region-by-month table built from one formula.

    7 exercisesPremium

    Practice

Logic & text

Let a cell decide for you with IF, and join text from several cells.

  • IF

    Ten exercises, from your first IF to blank checks, commissions, locked settings and late deliveries.

    10 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • AND & OR

    Five exercises, from AND on its own to OR nested inside AND.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • Nested IF & IFS

    Five exercises, from a first nested IF to IFS with AND, including a formula with its conditions in the wrong order to fix.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • SWITCH & XOR

    Five exercises, from your first SWITCH to XOR as the test of IF.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • IFERROR

    Five exercises, from hiding #DIV/0! to searching a second list when the first lookup fails.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • ISBLANK, ISNUMBER & ISTEXT

    Five exercises, from a single ISBLANK to a status built from two nested tests.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • CONCATENATE

    Five exercises, from your first full name to invoice IDs padded with zeros.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • TEXTJOIN & CONCAT

    Five exercises, from a list with commas to a label that nests TEXTJOIN inside CONCAT.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • LEFT, RIGHT & MID

    Five exercises, from a two-letter country code to splitting full names of any length.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • TRIM & cleaning text

    Five exercises, from removing extra spaces to building email addresses from messy names.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • TEXT

    Five exercises, from a ZIP code that lost its zero to a monthly sales label.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • Project: clean a customer list

    Take a messy customer export and make it usable: tidy the names, split each customer code into country and store, build labels, flag who to reward or follow up, look up country names safely and sort customers into tiers.

    8 exercisesPremium

    Practice

Lookups

Find a value in one table and bring it into another: VLOOKUP, XLOOKUP and INDEX + MATCH.

  • VLOOKUP

    Ten exercises, from your first VLOOKUP to a price and stock grid built with MATCH.

    10 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • HLOOKUP

    Five exercises, from your first HLOOKUP to a table filled down with $.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • XLOOKUP

    Ten exercises, from your first XLOOKUP to a two-way lookup with nested XLOOKUP.

    10 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • MATCH

    Five exercises, from an exact position to approximate match on a band table.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • INDEX + MATCH

    Five exercises, from MATCH on its own to a two-way lookup.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • Work across sheets

    Five exercises, from one cell on another sheet to a price lookup across sheets.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • Project: order invoice

    Turn a product catalog and a customer order into a finished invoice: look up names and prices, catch a code that isn’t in the catalog, find the customer’s discount and add tax.

    7 exercisesPremium

    Practice

Numbers & dates

Round numbers properly and work out the time between two dates.

  • ROUND

    Five exercises, from rounding a price to cents to rounding a calculated price copied down a column.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • CEILING & FLOOR

    Five exercises, from rounding up to whole cases to shipping only full cartons.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • TODAY & dates

    Five exercises, from showing today’s date to renewal dates built with DATE, YEAR, MONTH and DAY.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • DATEDIF

    Five exercises, from counting full years of service to a staff table copied down with a fixed reference date.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • EOMONTH

    Five exercises, from the last day of a month to due dates with each customer’s own terms.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • NETWORKDAYS

    Five exercises, from the working days in a month to the working days left before month end.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • Project: project schedule

    Build the schedule of a real website project: count working days without weekends and holidays, plan the testing phase, date the invoices and report the working days left on a status date.

    6 exercisesPremium

    Practice

Data tools

Drop-down lists, conditional formatting, filters and pivot tables to keep a sheet clear.

  • Drop-down list

    Five exercises, from a Yes/No list to a full ticket log.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • Conditional formatting

    Five exercises, from a simple Greater Than rule to an overdue-invoice tracker.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • Tables

    Five exercises, from creating a table to calculated columns, structured references and filters.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • FILTER

    Five exercises, from your first FILTER to two conditions taken from cells.

    5 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • Pivot table

    Ten exercises, from a simple total by region to filters, Max, averages by channel and formulas that read the pivot.

    10 exercisesPremium

    GuidePractice

  • Project: sales dashboard

    Clean up and analyse a real order list: make the statuses consistent with a drop-down, flag rows with conditional formatting, summarise sales with PivotTables and read a share from one.

    7 exercisesPremium

    Practice

About the course

Who is this course for?

People who use Excel at work, from complete beginners to anyone who wants to get lookups and conditional totals right.

How long does a lesson take?

Lesson 1 takes about two minutes. Most lessons are a short guide and five to ten exercises, so one fits in a coffee break.

Do I have to follow the order?

If you are new to Excel, start with stage 1. If you already know the basics, go straight to the function you need: each lesson stands on its own.

Is the course free?

Lesson 1 is free with no account, and lesson 2 is free with an account. Later lessons are part of Premium, which you can pay for monthly, yearly or once.

Your first formula is two minutes away.

Free to start, in your Excel’s language.

Start for free