Formula Lab: Practice Excel Formulas Online

Formula Lab is an interactive way to practice writing Excel formulas. You get a small sales spreadsheet and a series of real tasks. Type your own formula for each one and Formula Lab checks it against the data and tells you whether it works.

How Formula Lab works

  1. Read the task and look at the reference sheet. The cells you will likely need are outlined.
  2. Type your formula into the formula bar, with or without the leading equals sign, and select Check.
  3. Formula Lab evaluates your formula against the real sample data.
  4. If the answer is wrong, try again or reveal a hint.

At the end of the session you see how many exercises you solved, how many you solved cleanly without hints, how many hints you used and your accuracy.

Excel formula skills you can practice

The exercises use a small sales sheet and a category guide table, and cover these types of formulas:

  • Basic math: multiply units by price to get revenue
  • Logic: return “Restock” or “OK” based on a condition
  • Text: combine item and region into one label
  • Aggregation: sum, average, highest and lowest values
  • Conditional aggregation: count or total values for one region or a price limit
  • Lookup: look up a category from a guide table

Keep practicing Excel

Need more data to practice on? Create your own with the Excel Sample Data Generator. To speed up your work, try the Excel Shortcuts Game. You can find more practice tools on the Learn with Fun page.

Formula Lab FAQ

Do I have to type one exact formula?

No. Any formula that returns the right answer counts. For example, =SUM(C2:C7) and =C2+C3+C4+C5+C6+C7 both pass.

What if I get stuck on an exercise?

Select Show a hint. Hints unlock one step at a time, and the last hint always shows a full working formula.

Do I need to open Excel to use Formula Lab?

No. You type your formula into the formula bar on the page and select Check.

Is Formula Lab free?

Yes. It is part of the free toolkit at Game of Excel.