Why you might use Microsoft Excel

Excel is a software programme from Microsoft which uses spreadsheets to help you organise numbers and data.

Excel provides:

  • Functionality such as formulas and functions to help you organise, find and analyse your data.
  • Options to quickly create charts to present your data visually, such as a bar or pie chart.

How-to guidance and resources

Explore online step-by step guidance and videos about Excel within our University of Bath Learning Pathways site, or use the links below to quickly access resources about key topics.

An introduction to Excel

Managing your data

  • An overview of managing your data better through sorting, filtering and subtotals - recorded bite-sized webinars in Moodle.
  • An introduction to extracting information from your data - step-by step instructions and videos.
  • Guidance and resources about specific functionality:
    • Creating formulae and functions to quickly create and apply calculations - recorded bite-sized webinars in Moodle.
    • Using Advanced functions such as IF Functions, Conditional Formatting, and VLOOKUP to determine and apply rules about what information or formatting to put into cells, or to search your data - recorded bite-sized webinars in Moodle.
    • Using PivotTables to summarise your data to quickly reorganise and summarise large tables of data - recorded bite-sized webinars in Moodle.

If you are a daily user of Excel, such as those in Finance roles, you may sometimes wish to record or run Macros (a mini-program or a structured list of instructions) that tell Microsoft Excel, very specifically, what it should do. The bite-sized recordings in Moodle provide an introduction and show the basic processes for running and recording Macros, though please also be aware of the enhanced security measures which apply to Macros downloaded from the internet.

Summarising and visually presenting your data using charts

Storing and sharing your workbook

Review the guidance on how to share your Excel workbook with others.

In addition, the overview of storing and sharing files will to help you determine the best place to keep your document. Your University OneDrive is deleted when you leave the University, so it's best to create or move your file elsewhere unless it's personal to you.