GOOGLE SHEETS FOR BEGINNERS
Google Sheets for beginners — learn it by building one real sheet
Most beginner tutorials list features: here is a menu, here is a button. Ten videos later you can name the buttons and still can't build anything — and the video is always a little too fast.
What works better is one small, real job done from start to finish. Our example is a bakery's paper sales notebook. Moved into Google Sheets one step at a time, it teaches typing and fixing, dates, your first formulas, the $ sign, sorting and filtering, dropdowns, tick boxes, a chart, and sharing and printing — each at the moment you need it.
What you'll be able to do
- Start without fear: undo anything, and bring back any earlier version of your file
- Find any cell by its address, and type rows fast with Tab and Enter
- Spot numbers that are really text — the reason most wrong totals happen
- Your first formulas: + − × ÷, SUM, AVERAGE, MIN, MAX and COUNTA, with the answers updating by themselves
- The $ sign, formatting, freeze, sort, filter, dropdowns and tick boxes
- Share a live file instead of e-mailing copies, print on one page, and use it on your phone
- Read and fix the four errors beginners meet: #DIV/0!, #NAME?, #VALUE! and #REF!
- A finished project: the bakery's paper sales notebook, rebuilt as a live sheet
Start with one of these free guides
- Google Sheets: Apply a Formula to the Whole Column Without It BreakingDrag a formula down and it changes. Fix it with the $ sign to keep one cell locked while the rest move down, one short formula works everywhere.
- Google Sheets Dropdown List From Another Sheet (Step by Step)Stop the same item being typed three ways. Make a dropdown list in Google Sheets from a range on another tab, step by step.
- Google Sheets Checkbox: Change the Row Color When It's CheckedTick a checkbox and the whole row turns green; untick it and the color goes away. One custom formula in conditional formatting, step by step.
- How to Make a Pie Chart (or Column Chart) in Google SheetsTurn a small table into a pie or column chart in one click, give it a title, and watch it update by itself when a number changes.
Free: which spreadsheet problem do you have?
A 6-page PDF: ten everyday Google Sheets problems and the short book that fixes each one.
Get the free overviewAlso: Google Sheets formulas — the 8 you actually need · A Google Sheets budget you'll still use in December