Lesson 19

Preview

Formatting Numbers

Number formatting refers to the process of changing the appearance of values contained in cells. Excel provides a wide variety of number formatting options.
Values that you enter into cells are unformatted. They are simply a string of numerals. Your goal, of course is to format the numbers so they’re easier to read or are more consistent in terms of the decimal places shown.
Formatting Methods: There are two important ways to format data in cells.

You can format cells using the Ribbon, Font and Number sections. We will focus on this method for this course.
You can format cells using the Format Cells dialog box, which is more comprehensive.

Practice Exercise 11: Formatting Numbers

STEP 1A: Add an additional sheet to your workbook. At the bottom of your cell area are your Sheets created thus far. Press the + symbol to create a new sheet. You should now see Sheet1 & Sheet2 (FIGURE 1).

STEP 1B: To Rename a sheet, click on Sheet1, right-button mouse click it, select “Rename” (FIGURE 2).

STEP 1C: Rename Sheet1, “Formulas & AutoFill Table”. Press the Enter key. The renamed sheet should look like FIGURE 3.

Figure 3

STEP 2: Make cell A1 active.
Enter into the cell, 12.2%
View the Ribbon Number section. Observe that cell A1 has been given a “Percentage” format designation (FIGURE 4).

STEP 3: Make cell A2 active.
Enter into the cell, 1000
View the Ribbon Number section. Observe that cell A2 has been given a “General” format designation (FIGURE 5).

STEP 4: Make cell A3 active.
Enter into the cell, 1,000
View the Ribbon Number section. Observe that cell A3 has been given a “Number” format designation (FIGURE 6).

STEP 5: Make cell A4 active.
Enter into the cell $1000
View the Ribbon Number section. Observe that cell A4 has been given a “Currency” format designation (FIGURE 7).

Step 6: Widen Column A to size of 15 (FIGURE 8).

STEP 7: Make cell A5 active.
Enter into the cell $1000
Go to the Ribbon Number section and change the window to show “Accounting” by clicking on window arrowhead.
Notice how the $ sign has moved over to the far left (FIGURE 9).

Accounting formatting ensures that the $ sign and the decimal points will line up with numbers similarly formatted.

STEP 8: Make cell A5 active (FIGURE 10).

Add Bold and Red Font formatting to cell.

STEP 9: On the Ribbon Editing section, select “Clear“. Select the arrow; on drop down menu, select “Clear Formats” (FIGURE 11).

STEP 10: Observe cell A5. Besides removing the Bold and Red Font, what else was removed? What does the Number formatting window reflect? (FIGURE 12)