Understanding Number Formats in Excel
Learn how to apply Date, Currency, Percentage, and Decimal number formats, and understand how formatting affects calculations.
Video
Watch the lesson video, then complete the reading and challenge.
Lesson Notes
Read through the key concepts before you try the challenge.
General Format vs Specific Formats
By default, Excel uses the General format. This does not apply any special formatting such as currency symbols, percentage signs, or date styling.
Applying Date Formats
Dates can be formatted as Short Date, Long Date, or customized through the Format Cells dialog box.
Currency and Accounting Formats
Currency format adds a currency symbol and decimal places. Accounting format aligns currency symbols and decimal points for professional financial reports.
Decimal Places and Rounding
Use Increase Decimal and Decrease Decimal to control how many decimal places are displayed.
Understanding Percentage Format
Percentage format multiplies a value by 100 and adds a percent symbol. For example, typing 0.05 and applying Percentage becomes 5%.
How Formatting Affects Calculations
Formatting changes how data is displayed, but it does not change the underlying value. Understanding this is critical for accurate calculations.
Real-World Example: Customer Invoice
In professional documents like invoices, proper number formatting ensures totals, tax rates, and currency values are displayed correctly.
Knowledge Check
If a cell is formatted as Percentage, what does the value 0.25 display as?
Practice File
Download this file and follow along with the lesson.
Challenge
Apply what you've learned in this lesson.
Complete the following tasks:
- Format a column as Short Date.
- Change a date to Long Date format.
- Apply Currency formatting to a price column.
- Adjust decimal places to two digits.
- Format a tax rate as Percentage.
- Create a properly formatted invoice total.