With so many number formats available, why do we need to go adding to them by customizing number formats? Justification for additional number formats The ‘Text’ number format is available by scrolling down and is used when you want to treat numbers as text.Įxcel defaults to the ‘General’ format unless it thinks that it recognizes the type of number you’re entering as currency, date, time, or something else. A dropdown field in that group displays the format of the active cell and allows you to change the number format of the active cell or highlighted cells by selecting another format from the dropdown list. You can find a list of built-in formats on the Home tab of the Excel ribbon in the Number command group. The most important thing to understand about number formats is that they only affect how the number looks - they don't change the actual value of the number that Excel uses in calculations. Numeric data can mean dates, time, money, or anything else that looks like a number. What is a number format?Ī number format controls how cells with numeric data appear in Excel.

Let’s cover the basics quickly, then dive into the nitty-gritty. Since you want to learn how to create an Excel custom number format, it seems fair to assume that you already know how to find and locate the built-in number formats provided by Excel.īut we’d rather not take that for granted.

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