The five Excel resources actually worth bookmarking
Most "best Excel sites" lists are affiliate padding. These five are the ones we open ourselves — what each is genuinely good at, and when to use which.
Search "best Excel blogs" and you get twenty affiliate roundups listing the same forty sites, none of which the author has used. Here are five we actually keep open, what each is genuinely best at, and — more usefully — when *not* to reach for it.
1. Exceljet — the function reference to use when you know what you want
[exceljet.net/functions](https://exceljet.net/functions)
Dave and Lisa Bruns maintain a reference covering 400+ built-in Excel functions, each with syntax, a worked example and usage notes. There is a companion library at exceljet.net/formulas covering 1,000+ common formula tasks.
Best for: you know the function name and want the correct syntax plus one clean example, in about fifteen seconds.
Not for: open-ended "how do I approach this problem" questions. The entries are deliberately narrow.
The examples are unusually well chosen — small enough to read at a glance, realistic enough to adapt. That is rarer than it sounds.
2. Chandoo.org — the one that teaches you to think
[chandoo.org/wp/excel-tips-complete-archive/](https://chandoo.org/wp/excel-tips-complete-archive/)
Chandoo has been publishing since 2007 and the archive spans charts, dashboards, Power Query, VBA and pivot tables. The weekly newsletter covers Excel and Power BI.
Best for: dashboard and chart design, and the "which approach should I use" class of question. Chandoo writes about *why* a technique works, not just the keystrokes.
Not for: a quick syntax lookup — the posts are long by design.
If you only follow one Excel newsletter, this is the one.
3. MrExcel — the forum where genuinely hard problems get solved
[mrexcel.com](https://www.mrexcel.com/)
Bill Jelen has been at this for nearly three decades. The real asset is the message board, where people who know Excel far too well answer questions for free, usually within hours.
Best for: the problem you cannot even phrase properly. Post a stripped-down sample of your workbook and describe the outcome you want.
Not for: structured learning. It is a forum, so quality varies by thread and by who happened to be around.
Search the archive before posting. Twenty years of answered questions means yours has probably been asked.
4. ExcelChamps — the tips list that is actually a curriculum
[excelchamps.com/excel-basics/tips/](https://excelchamps.com/excel-basics/tips/)
Puneet, a Microsoft MVP for Excel, maintains a running collection of 100+ tips organised into categories rather than dumped in one list.
Best for: filling gaps you did not know you had. Skim a category and you will find two or three things you have been doing the long way for years.
Not for: depth on any single topic.
The category structure is what makes it work — it reads as a syllabus rather than listicle filler.
5. Microsoft's own function documentation — the source of truth
[support.microsoft.com — XLOOKUP](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/functions/xlookup-function)
Less pleasant to read than Exceljet, but it is authoritative, and it states version availability precisely.
Best for: settling arguments, and checking whether a function exists in the version your colleague is running. That last point matters more than people expect — XLOOKUP, LET, FILTER and the dynamic array functions simply do not exist in Excel 2019, and a formula that works on your machine can fail on theirs.
Not for: learning. The examples are thorough but rarely illuminating.
An honourable mention
Ablebits' blog and Spreadsheeto both publish long, careful tutorials on individual functions. They sell add-ins and courses respectively, so read them knowing that — but the free content is substantive rather than a teaser.
How we actually use them
In practice the pattern is:
- Know the function, need the syntax → Exceljet
- Know the problem, need an approach → Chandoo
- Cannot phrase the problem → MrExcel forum
- Need to know if it runs on Excel 2019 → Microsoft docs
- Bored, want to learn something → ExcelChamps
None of these replace having the data in front of you. When the question is about *your* file rather than about Excel in general, the Formula Explainer will break down what an inherited formula is doing, and the Workbook Analyzer will tell you what is actually in a spreadsheet somebody handed you.
*All five links checked and working as of July 2025. If one breaks, tell us and we will fix it.*
