Background Systematic reviews are complex and involve time-consuming, deep research in the academic literature to search, extract data, assess their quality and report the results. Digital tools and software have been developed to simplify different phases of this process but some of these are not free to use. Microsoft Excel is typically accessible to a great many researchers free of charge, so using it involves no further costs.

Aim To explain how to use Microsoft Excel to create transparent and complete reports for systematic reviews.

Discussion The author’s method includes six steps: downloading the references, preparing worksheets, removing any duplicate references, screening the references by title and abstract, screening the full text of references, and listing the articles for inclusion in the review.

Conclusion The Excel method is efficient and free and can produce transparent and complete reports of systematic reviews. It is a valid alternative to the systematic reviews produced by advanced tools and software.

Implications for practice The documents produced by this method are a good source for the direct production of scientific texts.