Google Sheets for Beginners

Course Overview

Discover how to use Google’s popular online spreadsheet application with this comprehensive beginner-level course for Google Sheets. This application is perfect for collaboration as it allows you and other users to work on the same spreadsheet at once and to save all your changes in real time. No more conflicting changes and lost work! Think of it as using Excel, only better.

In this Google Sheets for Beginners course, we start from the very beginning, where we teach you how to create a spreadsheet from scratch. We’ll work through rows and columns, themes, formatting, and a handful of keyboard shortcuts. We’ll also cover inserting images, checkboxes, and comments as well as using Google Drawings.

This course also discusses data cleanup and data validation, including how to create dropdown menus. We then move on to basic formulas and functions, sorting and filtering, working with multiple sheets, adding graphs and charts, and sharing your sheet.

This is a beginner-level course designed for Google Sheets novices who are just starting out with spreadsheets; it is suitable for both PC and Mac users. We’ve also included accessible exercise and instructor files—the same Google Sheets files that the instructor uses in the tutorial, so you can follow along.

Learning Objectives:

This course covers:

  • Multiple ways to access Google Sheets
  • Getting familiar with the Google Sheets interface
  • Working with cells, rows, and columns, including group and merge functions
  • Keyboard shortcuts (for both PC and Mac)
  • Applying themes, formatting, and conditional formatting
  • How to insert links, images, checkboxes, notes, and comments
  • Using Google Drawings to insert drawings and videos
  • Adding data validations and dropdowns in cells
  • Sorting and filtering data
  • Using basic formulas and functions
  • All about the Query function
  • How to work with multiple sheets
  • Adding charts and graphs and the different types available
  • Editing and customizing charts
  • How to share your sheet and collaborate with other users
  • Downloading, printing, and publishing your Google Sheets file