Microsoft Excel Beginners Tutorial (2026)

This is the Microsoft Excel guide and tutorial for beginners. If you're new to and getting started with Excel or coming from another app, in this video we teach the basics of Excel, the user interface, core concepts, and how to work with basic data.

We'll show you how to build a full Excel workbook from scratch using natural language prompts with Copilot. Format cells, write formulas, and analyze a year of data. Generate sample data, calculate totals, apply conditional formatting, and pin down outliers across columns and rows, all from your browser at excel.new. Share the workbook by name, group, or email and co-author with teammates across web, desktop, and phone. Every edit syncs to OneDrive in real time.

Jeremy Chapman, Microsoft 365 Director, shares how to go from blank workbook to analyzed, shared spreadsheet in one sitting.

If you have a work or school accounts, Copilot Chat is available at no additional cost if you have Microsoft 365 A1/A3/A5, Business Basic/Standard/Premium, E3/E5, F1/F3, G3/G5, and Office 365 A1/A1 Plus/A3/A5, E1/E1 Plus/E3/E5, F3, G1/G3/G5.

If you have a personal Microsoft account, Copilot is available with Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, or Premium in Microsoft 365. For Family and multi-user accounts, only the subscription owner can use Copilot in the desktop apps.

► QUICK LINKS: 

00:00 - Excel Essentials

00:57 - Start from a blank workbook

02:11 - Core terms and concepts

04:25 - Generate Sample Data with Copilot

06:16 - How to work with the numbers

09:35 - Copilot Writes Your SUM Formulas

09:57 - Conditional Formatting from a Prompt

10:40 - Outlier Analysis with Reasoning

11:36 - Real-Time Co-Authoring in OneDrive

12:22 - Wrap up

► Link References 

Check it out at https://microsoft.com/excel

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