Introducing Free Excel, Canva, and Power BI Courses for Beginners

A spreadsheet someone can check. A flyer people can read. A report that answers the right question. These are useful outcomes to work toward when you are learning a new tool.

READY's three new Free Training courses help you practice those tasks: Excel for Beginners, Canva for Beginners, and Power BI for Beginners. Each uses original exercises, guided explanations, and knowledge checks to connect tool skills with the decisions behind the work.

You can read the course overviews and supporting tutorials publicly. Create a free READY account to enter the lessons and save your progress. Choose the course that fits a task you want to understand, then work through its practice project at your own pace.

Excel: build a workbook you can explain

The free Excel beginner course starts with a reliable workbook and builds toward a checked workplace report. You will practice formulas, data cleaning, exact-match lookups, PivotTables, and charts using fictional data supplied for the exercises.

The questions behind those steps matter. What does one row represent? Is a blank value unknown or genuinely zero? Which fields make two records duplicates? Should the report count orders, units, or sales? Working through these distinctions helps you catch mistakes that formatting alone cannot reveal.

Consider two orders: two notebooks at $8 each and three pens at $5 each. Sales are $16 plus $15, or $31. Multiplying the combined quantity by the combined prices gives a different answer because it mixes the orders. Our Excel formulas tutorial walks through this example, including cell references and simple checks.

You will also learn to compare a summary with its source. The beginner PivotTable tutorial shows how to distinguish Sum from Count, reconcile regional totals, and check whether a newly added record is included after a refresh.

The course project brings these skills into a workbook with raw data, cleaning notes, exceptions, lookups, summaries, a chart, and a handoff note. Hands-on practice uses Excel for the web or a suitable desktop version. The lessons include an older-version lookup alternative where relevant.

Canva: create a clear set of workplace materials

The free Canva beginner course takes you from a design request to a coordinated square post, portrait flyer, and three-slide presentation. The practice brief describes a fictional event, so you can focus on the work without needing a real client or campaign.

You will decide what the audience needs to know, which action the design should support, and which facts must remain visible. Then you will practice hierarchy, alignment, readable typography, contrast, image choices, and adaptation across formats.

Start with the Canva flyer tutorial. It shows how to organize the main message, attendance details, and next action. It also explains why opening the exported file is part of the task: a design that looks right in the editor may still contain an incorrect date, unreadable text, or a broken link when delivered.

The course includes a practical approach to AI-written copy. An appealing headline is not enough if it invents a benefit or changes an event detail. The AI copy checklist for Canva helps you compare each claim with the brief, remove unsupported promises, and retain the information the audience needs.

You need a Canva account for hands-on editing, but the core exercises do not require Canva Pro. They use free elements, ordinary editing and exports, and a manual path when a paid feature is suggested. Keep the fictional event materials as practice rather than publishing them as real announcements.

Power BI: build and check your first report

The free Power BI beginner course guides a first local report build from supplied data. You will import CSV files, prepare data in Power Query, connect tables, create DAX measures, and build visuals with a slicer.

The course keeps verification close to construction. You will examine key uniqueness, missing matches, refresh results, and the effect of filters. Your final project includes a local report, a test matrix, and notes that help another person reproduce the work.

The first Power BI report tutorial introduces the workflow using an Orders table and a Products table. The companion SUMX calculation tutorial explains why calculating sales within each row matters—and why a formula that runs successfully can still answer the wrong question.

Hands-on Power BI Desktop work requires a supported Windows environment. You can read the lessons and complete knowledge checks without installing it. The project focuses on local authoring; online sharing has separate licensing and organizational requirements. This beginner course is distinct from READY's broader PL-300 preparation.

Use AI help with a way to check the answer

Across the three courses, AI examples support a consistent habit: explain the task, preserve the source facts, and check the proposed answer. A formula needs a known-result test. Design copy needs a verified brief. A report measure needs a clear definition and a comparison you can calculate independently.

Prepared examples mean you do not need a paid AI subscription to practice these checks. Use the supplied fictional material rather than uploading employer or personal information into an exercise.

These are independent READY courses, without Microsoft or Canva affiliation or endorsement. Completing them does not award a vendor credential or promise a free completion certificate.

Start with the task closest to your work: build an Excel workbook, create a Canva design set, or make your first Power BI report. You can also explore the full Free Training catalog.