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EXCEL UNPLUGGED
Collection of Excel Know How and little Excel Tips and
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JUL 22 2014
3 COMMENTS
BY GAPER KAMENEK MICROSOFT EXCEL, MS EXCEL
Custom Cell Format You Must Know in Excel






i
7 Votes
Custom cell formats are a very important steppingstone to eternal happiness in Excel. And among all
Custom Formats, one takes precedence for both, its usability and versatility. We will get to understand
it through two examples.
Four for the Price of One
The following Custom format allows you to set four different formats at once. And the best part is,
unknowingly, youve been using it since youve started using Excel. But now, you will understand it
and be able to take it to the next level. Lets start with a simple example. Its a range of cells filled by
positive and negative values, zeroes and text. Its great if the positive and negative go above 1000 or
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bellow -1000, since this will better show the effects of our format. To create this I used
=RANDBETWEEN(-10000,10000)*RAND() and if you preselected the range, give it a little Ctrl+Enter
This is a very simple example of a range in excel that has positive values, negative values, zeroes and
text. Now lets try the following
Select the range of cells and press Ctrl+1 to get the Format Cells dialog box (one of the best shortcuts in
Excel, but the first time you use it can sometimes take a while). You can also right click and choose
Format Cells, or you can use any other method you would normally use.
Go to Custom and add type in 0.0;- #,##0.00;0;@
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Press Ok and Voila
Heres what we see:
The positive numbers are all shown with a one decimal point precision and no 1000 separator. (0.0)
The negative numbers are shown with a minus sign, two decimal points precision and a 1000
separator. (-#,##0,00)
The zero values are shown with no decimal places and no 1000 separator. (0) This is something we
wish to do on numerous occasions, to show zeroes differently that other numbers. Also, this is
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something that can be easily observed if youre using the accounting format where the null values
are shown as -.
And finally, the text is shown. (@)
From this example we learned that it is possible to differentiate in Excel, how the positive, negative,
zeroes and text will be formatted! The custom format looks like this.
Positive;negative;zeroes;text or sometimes it will be referred to as +;-;0;@
Here is a far more advanced example.
One more time we select the range and go to Format Cells (Hopefully by pressing Ctrl+1)
This time the format will be
[Green] #,##0.00;[Red] #,##0.00 (-);;@
Heres what we get
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So the positive numbers are green (if you chose a different language for your Office UI, then you
must write the colors in that language), have a 1000 separator (if necessary) and two decimal places.
([Green] #,##0.00)
The negative are Red, the number itself is formatted in the same manner as the positive numbers
are, but with the addition of a minus sign in brackets at the end. Yes, you can do that to, if you
wanted to, you could leave the minus sign out completely.
Now heres a shocker and one of the most useful things this format does. You can see that no
format was set for the zero values and therefore, they are not visible. So if a format is not set, the
values are hidden Simply brilliant.
Nothing special to say about the Text format, but if we omitted the @, no text would show. It would
still be in the cell, but it would not show.
Now once you know this, you can do miracles and better yet, now you can understand the formats of
the cells far better.
For example if you choose the simple Accounting format in Excel (which I guess you do every day),
and then go to the Format Cells and custom, you can see that what you really got is something like
_-* #,##0.00 $_-;-* #,##0.00 $_-;_-* -?? $_-;_-@_-
And there you have it. Four distinct formats and now we know why the zeroes show as -. There are
some additional signs used to align the cells in the format above, but I will not get into that. My
intention was to lay the groundwork here. If this topic interests you further, here
(http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/create-a-custom-number-format-HP010342372.aspx) is a
great place to start.
Tagged Cell Format, Custom Cell Format, Excel, Excel Trick, Excel Tricks, Microsoft Excel, MS
Excel, Tips and Tricks
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3 thoughts on Custom Cell Format You Must Know
in Excel
Hryshko says:
July 22, 2014 at 8:50 PM
Awesome post!
How did you get Text and 0 into your cells using the equation you provided
=RANDBETWEEN(-10000,10000)*RAND()?
Or did you just randomly select cells and type in Text and 0?
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gasperkamensek says:
July 22, 2014 at 10:15 PM
Thanks,
the text and the zeroes were entered manually By Ctrl+Enter.
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SutoCom says:
July 24, 2014 at 12:05 PM
Reblogged this on SutoCom Solutions.
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