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Learn Excel Formulas

From relative references to XLOOKUP, FILTER and LET.

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Excel formulas are the instructions that turn a grid of numbers into answers, and a few dozen functions cover most real work. The foundation is not any single function but how references behave: relative references shift when you copy a formula, while absolute references with dollar signs stay fixed. On top of that come logic with IF and IFS, conditional totals with SUMIFS and COUNTIFS, lookups with XLOOKUP or INDEX and MATCH, text and date functions, and the newer dynamic array functions such as FILTER, SORT and UNIQUE. Learnr builds an Excel formulas course around the tasks you actually do, in short lessons with formulas to practice.

How to learn Excel Formulas, step by step

Nail references before functions. Build a small price times quantity sheet and copy the formula down and across. Then lock a tax rate cell with $B$1, pressing F4 to cycle reference types, and try mixed references like $A2 in a multiplication table.
Write decisions with IF and friends. Flag late invoices with IF, combine conditions with AND and OR, and replace deep nesting with IFS. Wrap risky calculations in IFERROR only after you understand what error you are hiding.
Answer questions with SUMIFS and COUNTIFS. On a sales table, total revenue by region and month, count orders over a threshold and average by product. Use criteria like ">="&D1 pointing at cells instead of typing values into the formula.
Learn lookups properly. Use XLOOKUP for exact matches, a not-found message and searching from the bottom. Learn INDEX with MATCH too, since older Excel versions lack XLOOKUP, and understand why VLOOKUP breaks when someone inserts a column.
Clean text and dates. Practice TRIM, LEFT, RIGHT, MID, TEXTBEFORE where available, and TEXT for formatting. For dates, learn that they are serial numbers and use DATE, EOMONTH and NETWORKDAYS. A few Learnr exercises a day keep the syntax at your fingertips.
Use dynamic arrays and audit your work. Return whole result sets with FILTER, SORT and UNIQUE, and name intermediate steps with LET. Use Evaluate Formula and Trace Precedents to check long formulas instead of trusting a number that merely looks right.

What you'll learn

Use relative, absolute and mixed references and copy formulas correctly
Build conditional logic with IF, IFS, AND, OR and IFERROR
Summarize data with SUMIFS, COUNTIFS and AVERAGEIFS
Look up values with XLOOKUP, and with INDEX and MATCH in older versions
Clean text and dates and use dynamic array functions like FILTER and UNIQUE

What's inside your Excel Formulas course

A sample path Learnr builds for Excel Formulas. Your real course adapts to your goal and level.

1. Formula basics, operators and references
2. Logical functions and error handling
3. Conditional math: SUMIFS and COUNTIFS
4. Lookups: XLOOKUP, VLOOKUP, INDEX and MATCH
5. Text and date functions
6. Dynamic arrays, LET and auditing formulas

How long does it take to learn Excel Formulas?

The everyday formulas, references, IF, SUMIFS and lookups, take about 2 to 4 weeks at 3 hours a week. Dynamic arrays, LET and writing clean, auditable formulas for real reports take another month or two of regular use.

What you need before you start

Basic Excel navigation: entering data, selecting cells and saving a workbook. Comfort with arithmetic is enough math; no programming is required.

Common mistakes to avoid

Hardcoding numbers like a tax rate inside formulas. Put inputs in their own labeled cells and reference them so one change updates everything.
Using VLOOKUP with approximate match by leaving the last argument blank, which can silently return the wrong row. Use exact match or XLOOKUP.
Hiding every error with IFERROR, which also hides broken references and typos. Handle the specific case you expect and let real errors show.

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Excel Formulas questions, answered

Is XLOOKUP available in every version of Excel?

No. XLOOKUP and dynamic array functions such as FILTER and UNIQUE are in Microsoft 365 and recent perpetual versions, but not older ones like Excel 2016. INDEX with MATCH works everywhere.

What Excel formulas should a beginner learn first?

Start with SUM, AVERAGE, MIN and MAX, then cell references, IF, SUMIFS and COUNTIFS, and one lookup function. Those cover most day-to-day spreadsheet questions.

Do these formulas work in Google Sheets?

Most do, including IF, SUMIFS, INDEX, MATCH, FILTER, UNIQUE and XLOOKUP, though a few functions and behaviors differ. Sheets also has its own functions such as QUERY and ARRAYFORMULA.