The beginner Excel training gives you a solid foundation to use Microsoft Excel with ease and produce your first professional tables and calculations. Over a full day, you discover the Excel environment, data entry and formatting, simple calculations, basic charts and printing spreadsheets. A pivotal skill in almost all administrative and operational roles in French speaking Switzerland.
Master Excel from the basics to never waste time facing a table again
For new Excel users in French speaking Switzerland, knowing how to produce a clean table and a reliable calculation immediately changes the professional daily life. This Excel course focuses on hands on cases: tracking table, mini-budget, contact list, VAT calculation. By the end, you have reflexes immediately applicable and a reference handbook to reproduce manipulations at your desk.
Module 1: Basic features of Excel
Module 2 : Formatting
Module 3: Formulas and Functions
Module 4: Using tables
Module 5: Charts
Excel remains the most used office tool in business, and knowing how to use it from the basics has become a prerequisite in most administrative, commercial and operational roles. The beginner Excel course delivers these basics in one intensive day, with no prior IT experience required.
The usefulness is operational: whether for a personal budget, contact list, invoice tracking or mini-dashboard, Excel becomes usable as soon as you master the environment, entry, simple calculations and formatting.
The training starts with a complete hands on use of the Excel interface: ribbon, toolbar, navigation between sheets and workbooks, essential keyboard shortcuts. This familiarity with the environment is what distinguishes an efficient user from one who struggles.
You then learn structured data entry: differentiating text, numbers and dates, using auto-fill, exploiting predefined lists.
Excel formatting turns a raw table into a readable support. You learn to apply numeric formats (CHF, percentage, date), format cells (font, color, borders), visually hierarchize your tables.
The heart of the course is the introduction to Excel calculations. You learn to write a simple formula (=A1+B1), use math operators, copy a formula across a range. You then discover essential functions: SUM, AVERAGE, MIN, MAX.
The training shows how to create basic charts (column, line, pie) from an Excel table. Excel printing is also covered: print preview, fit to page, headers and footers.
The beginner Excel course is designed for assistants, secretaries, administrative profiles, self employed professionals, students in retraining and anyone starting on Excel. No specific prerequisites needed beyond using a computer.
In Carouge and Le Flon, in ITTA premises, this Excel Fundamentals training runs over one day led by an expert instructor in a limited group. You work on concrete cases and take home a course guide to reproduce manipulations.
Who is this beginner Excel course for?
For anyone starting on Excel who wants to master the basics in a structured way.
Which Excel version is used in training?
Microsoft Excel 365, the most up to date version. Techniques apply to Excel 2021 and 2019 too.
How long until you become autonomous on Excel?
The basics are acquired in a structured day. Mastery comes with practice on your own tables.
How to go further after this beginner Excel course?
The Excel Formulas and Functions course to deepen calculations, or the Excel Becoming more efficient course to gain productivity.
In which cities is this training delivered?
The Excel Fundamentals training is held at the ITTA center in Carouge in Geneva, at Le Flon in Lausanne and in a virtual classroom.
Does the course prepare for a certification?
This training is non certifying. For an Excel certification, the MOS Excel Associate course takes the relay.
Do I need Excel installed to follow the training?
The training environment is provided. Microsoft 365 or Excel 2021 license is recommended for practice afterwards.
Beginner or occasional Excel users wanting to acquire solid bases for daily efficiency on spreadsheets and simple calculations. In Geneva and Lausanne, the course welcomes participants from international organizations, banking, consulting and growing SMEs. No specific prerequisite is required other than a concrete willingness to progress on the subject.
You leave with an operational mastery of the fundamentals, reusable canvases on your concrete cases, a structured action plan for the weeks that follow. Many participants report a visible effect from the first week back, with sustainable anchoring over four to six weeks of regular practice. The course combines short theory inputs, practical exercises on your real situations and personalized trainer debrief.
An assistant structuring monthly tracking tables without tinkering. A salesperson cleanly calculating commissions and margins. A communication officer producing readable charts for reports. The course adapts exercises to your context with personalized trainer feedback, and each participant leaves with an action plan calibrated to their own situation.
This training combines well with Excel Becoming more efficient, Excel Advanced formulas, and dedicated charts and pivot tables courses. Many participants enroll in one of these courses in the following trimester, according to their current priority and professional context.
Excel remains the most used tool in business for calculations and simple data analysis. Mastering fundamentals saves hours each week on repetitive tasks. This training proposes rigorous initiation applicable from return to position.
At ITTA centers in Geneva and Lausanne, this course runs in a small group with an expert trainer and a format alternating concise theory, practical exercises and personalized debrief. Group confidentiality is explicit and held. Each participant arrives with a real case and leaves with an action plan calibrated to their context. The course integrates recent evolutions of the domain (digital tools, hybrid formats, 2025-2026 practices) without losing focus on fundamentals.
Which Excel version is covered?
The course covers Excel 365 and Excel 2021. Modern functions (XLOOKUP, FILTER) are briefly introduced.
Suitable for true beginners?
Yes, no specific prerequisite.
What after this course?
For more, ITTA proposes data analysis, advanced formulas and pivot tables courses.
Where do sessions take place?
ITTA has three centers in French speaking Switzerland: in Geneva (Carouge, Route des Jeunes 35), in Lausanne at the Flon (Rue des Cotes de Montbenon 16) and at Lausanne Mon-Repos (Avenue de Mon-repos 24). The training is also available in virtual classroom.
Monday to Friday
8:30 AM to 6:00 PM
Tel. 058 307 73 00
ITTA
Route des jeunes 35
1227 Carouge, Suisse
Monday to Friday, from 8:30 am to 06:00 pm.
