About learningxlsx

learningxlsx teaches Excel on a spreadsheet grid that runs in your browser. Each lesson is a real sheet: you type the formula into the cell, press Enter, and the sheet tells you whether it is right, why not if it isn't, and lights up the cells your formula read.

Why a game

Most Excel help explains a formula and leaves the typing to you. Typing it is where it sticks. So every step here asks for the formula, checks it against the answer, and names the common mistakes when you make them: VLOOKUP without FALSE, a percentage divided by the wrong year, a total that moves when you copy it.

Every lesson can be played again in another setting with new numbers: a concert tour, a coffee bar, a bike shop, a festival bar, a plant nursery or a football club. The names and numbers are made up.

How the answers are made

No answer is typed in by hand. Each sheet is generated from a lesson template and run through the site's own formula engine, which is checked against real Microsoft Excel: hundreds of formulas, and every lesson replayed in Excel with twenty sets of numbers. The worked examples on the lesson pages come from the same engine.

A right answer has to be right for the right reason. A formula that only matches these particular numbers, such as a MAX over two cells you picked by eye, is run again on changed data and refused.

What it doesn't do

It isn't Excel. It has the functions the lessons need and many more, but not charts, pivot tables, macros or saving files. Some functions, such as XLOOKUP, UNIQUE, FILTER and SORT, need Excel 2021 or Microsoft 365; the lesson pages say where that matters.

Who makes it

A14A B.V. makes learningxlsx. It is free, it has no account and no adverts, and your progress stays in your browser. The privacy page says exactly what is measured.

Questions: hello@a14a.org.

Not affiliated with Microsoft. Excel is a trademark of Microsoft.