Datasheet
Format
Numbers
F
ormatting makes your data easier to read and
helps you conform to company, country, or
industry standards for formatting. Excel provides
a variety of options for formatting numbers, dates, and
times. By applying formatting, you change the way a
number, date, or time appears. For example, you can use
Excel’s formatting options to tell Excel you want to
separate the month, day, and year of a date with slashes.
The Number group on the Home tab has several buttons
you can use to format numbers quickly. Click the down
arrow next to the Accounting Number Format button to
choose to apply a United States currency format, a United
Kingdom currency format, a Euro format, or another
currency format. Use the Percent Style button to display
the value in a cell as a percent. Use the Comma Style
button to display the value in a cell with a thousands
separator. Use the Increase Decimal and Decrease Decimal
buttons to increase and decrease the number of decimal
places.
The Number Format box is located on the Home tab in the
Number group. You can use it to format numbers quickly.
Just click the down arrow to display a menu of options.
Then click a format option to apply it to a cell or cell
range. Click the More Number Formats option to open the
Format Cells dialog box. You can also click the launcher
in the Number group to open the Format Cells dialog box.
The Format Cells dialog box has four categories you can
use to format numbers: General, Number, Currency, and
Accounting. The General format is the default format.
It displays numbers exactly the way you type them.
GENERAL NUMBER FORMAT
1 Type numbers.
The numbers appear in the format
you type them.
2 Click and drag to select the cells
you want to format.
3 Click the Home tab.
4 Click the Comma Style button in
the Number group.
3
1
2
4
Format Numbers
6
•
Excel separates the thousands in
the numbers.
•
Excel adds two decimal places.
•
Negative numbers appear in
parentheses.
•
Zeros are represented by a dash.
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