Sheet Happens

Free interactive Google Sheets lessons

Make learning spreadsheets fun by creating useful sheet

Short, step-by-step, Interactive lessons. Type a formula, press check and get instant feedback. Use anonymously or create a free account to track your progress!

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Takes about 5 minutes. Your progress is saved in your browser.

Simply does it

How Sheet Happens works

1

Softly, softly, catchee monkey

Each lesson is broken into short tasks, such as "add up this column". One instruction at a time prevents the feeling of becoming overwhelmed.

2

Try it live

Click cells, type formulas and format data in a practice spreadsheet that behaves just like Google Sheets.

3

Get instant feedback

Stuck? We check your work and tell you exactly what to fix. Ask for a hint or see the answer if you've hit a brick wall.

The lessons

Pick your level

From your very first cells to building advanced tools for for your day-to-day life.

Beginner

One small step for (hu)man

If you've never opened a spreadsheet, or only ever typed numbers into one, start here. You'll learn how cells work, get comfortable in the editor and even write your first formulas. Let's go!

Cell Mates Learn what cells, rows, columns and addresses are, and how to find any cell. Beginner 5 min · 4 steps Entering data & formatting Type into cells, bold a header row and format prices as currency. Beginner 5 min · 4 steps Numbers, text and formats See why Sheets treats numbers and text differently, and how formats change how a number looks. Beginner 7 min · 4 steps Colours, borders and alignment Make a sheet easier to read with fill colours, text colours, borders, alignment and wrapping. Beginner 7 min · 5 steps Your first formulas Add numbers with +, then switch to SUM and AVERAGE and watch totals update. Beginner 8 min · 5 steps Order of operations Why =2+3*4 is 14, how brackets change the answer and the classic percentage mistake. Beginner 8 min · 5 steps Copying formulas down Write a formula once and fill it down a column, and see how the references move. Beginner 7 min · 4 steps Locking cells with $ Fix the classic fill-down bug by locking a cell reference with $. Beginner 8 min · 4 steps Handy functions: MAX, MIN, COUNT and ROUND Find the biggest and smallest values, count numbers and tidy the decimals. Beginner 7 min · 5 steps Making decisions with IF Make a sheet decide for itself with IF: free shipping above a threshold, then fill the formula down. Beginner 7 min · 3 steps Percentages: discounts, shares and change Work out a sale price, each item's share of a total and a percentage change. Beginner 9 min · 5 steps Sorting your data Turn a jumbled league table into a ranking, then into an alphabetical list, keeping every row together. Beginner 5 min · 2 steps Filtering: show only what you need Hide the rows you do not want to see, and bring them back again. Beginner 7 min · 4 steps Tidying data: trim, replace and remove duplicates Clean up a messy list with Trim spaces, Find and replace, and Remove duplicates. Beginner 8 min · 4 steps Rows and columns: insert, delete, hide and freeze Add and remove rows and columns, hide what you do not need and freeze the header. Beginner 8 min · 5 steps Checkboxes and a self-counting packing list Turn cells into tick boxes and count the ticks with a formula. Beginner 6 min · 4 steps Your first chart Turn a table into a column, line or pie chart, and pick the right one. Beginner 7 min · 4 steps Keyboard shortcuts challenge Practise the shortcuts that make you quicker: jumping, selecting, bold, copy and paste. Beginner 8 min · 6 steps Fixing broken formulas Read the error messages in Sheets and repair a broken sheet. Beginner 8 min · 4 steps 20 Beginner graduation project Project: Build a monthly budget planner Capstone: combine formulas, fill down, IF, absolute references and formatting into a budget you could really use. 15 min · 7 steps

Coming soon

  • Filtering data
  • Your first chart
Intermediate

Work with real data

You can build a formula. Now make sheets do real work: summarise by condition, look things up across tables, clean up text and dates, and make data easier to read.

Counting and adding with conditions Add up and count only the rows you care about with SUMIF and COUNTIF. Intermediate 8 min · 4 steps Several conditions with SUMIFS and COUNTIFS Total or count rows that match more than one condition at once. Intermediate 8 min · 4 steps Combining conditions: AND, OR and nested IF Make decisions with more than one test, and hand out grades with an IF inside an IF. Intermediate 9 min · 4 steps IFS and SWITCH Replace long chains of nested IF with IFS, and match a code to a label with SWITCH. Intermediate 8 min · 4 steps Cleaning up text: TRIM, PROPER, LEFT and FIND Fix messy names, pull a username out of an email address and join text back together. Intermediate 9 min · 4 steps Splitting and joining text Pull a first and last name out of one cell, and join pieces of text back together. Intermediate 8 min · 5 steps Working with dates Build dates with DATE, take them apart with YEAR, MONTH and DAY, and show them the way you want. Intermediate 8 min · 5 steps Date calculations Work out days between dates, whole months, working days, and dates a few months away. Intermediate 8 min · 4 steps Looking things up with VLOOKUP Look up a name or price from a table, and show a friendly message when it is missing. Intermediate 10 min · 4 steps Tiered lookups Find which band a number falls into, such as a grade, a tax band or a discount tier. Intermediate 8 min · 4 steps Rounding and remainders Round money, work out how many boxes you need, and find what is left over. Intermediate 7 min · 4 steps Ranking data Rank a list, find the third highest or second lowest value, and name the winner. Intermediate 8 min · 5 steps Conditional formatting Make cells change colour by themselves when their value passes a rule. Intermediate 8 min · 4 steps Dropdowns and data validation Give a cell a drop-down list so only valid answers can be entered. Intermediate 7 min · 4 steps Working with several sheets Keep prices on one tab and orders on another, and make formulas reach across. Intermediate 9 min · 5 steps Handling errors and blanks Stop errors spreading through a sheet with IFERROR, IFNA and ISBLANK. Intermediate 8 min · 4 steps Charts that tell a story Pick the right chart for the question, and give it a title that says what to notice. Intermediate 8 min · 4 steps Pivot tables Summarise a long list by group, such as sales by region, without writing a formula for each. Intermediate 9 min · 4 steps Cleaning messy data Tidy names, turn numbers stored as text into real numbers, and remove duplicates. Intermediate 9 min · 5 steps 20 Intermediate graduation project Project: Build an electric vehicle mileage and cost calculator Capstone: turn a charging log into a tool that works out miles, cost, efficiency and which trips to review. 20 min · 8 steps

Coming soon

  • Dates and times
  • Conditional formatting
  • Data validation dropdowns
  • Pivot tables
Adept

Formulas that do the heavy lifting

Move from one formula per cell to formulas that fill whole ranges. Learn modern lookups, array formulas, filtering and sorting, and pulling data in from other sheets.

Adept graduation project · coming soon Project: Home energy usage calculator Track electricity and gas readings month by month, price them with tariff lookups and see where the money goes.

In the works

  • XLOOKUP and INDEX/MATCH
  • ARRAYFORMULA
  • FILTER, SORT and UNIQUE
  • Named ranges
  • QUERY basics
  • IMPORTRANGE
  • Regular expressions
  • SPLIT and JOIN
Pro

Reports and models others depend on

Analyse, forecast and present data with confidence. Build pivot tables, write QUERY statements, use statistics and bring it all together in interactive dashboards.

Pro graduation project · coming soon Project: Sales performance report Turn a year of raw sales into a pivot-driven report with charts, forecasts and a dashboard anyone can filter.

In the works

  • Pivot tables
  • QUERY
  • Statistics and forecasting
  • Data validation and protection
  • Interactive dashboards
  • Working across many sheets
Master

Build tools, not just sheets

Design spreadsheets other people rely on. Write powerful queries, build your own functions with LAMBDA, automate work with Apps Script and put together live dashboards.

Master graduation project · coming soon Project: Automated household finance dashboard Pull everything together with QUERY, LAMBDA and Apps Script into a dashboard that updates itself.

In the works

  • Advanced QUERY
  • LET and LAMBDA
  • MAP, REDUCE and SCAN
  • Apps Script automation
  • Custom functions
  • Dashboards
  • Data cleaning pipelines

Good to know

Questions

Do I need an account?

No. Every lesson works without signing in, and your progress is remembered in your browser. If you'd prefer to properly save your progress, creating a free account will let you do so across devices.

Is it free?

Yep, all lessons are free. The site is supported by ads. That's it really.

Is this the real Google Sheets?

No, let's be honest... Google wouldn't have picked a ridiculous domain name like this. Sheet Happens gives you interactive practice spreadsheets built for learning. They support the features each lesson requires and behave the way Google Sheets does, so what you learn carries over. It is not Google Sheets itself, and some advanced features work slightly differently in the real thing. Bear that in mind.

Do I need to know anything first?

Nope, lesson one assume you've never entered a single thing into a spreadsheet in your life.

Ready to start your journey?

Your first lesson takes about five minutes. What are you waiting for?

Start the first lesson