Excel 2000 in a Nutshell

Chapter 7. Format

Excel uses formatting to determine how the contents of a cell should display (i.e., bold, italics, font size, left justified, etc.). Besides specifying the look of cell contents, you can also indicate how numeric values should be handled by applying a number format to a cell. By default, all cells within a worksheet have General formatting. There are actually 12 different default number formats that can be applied to a cell and each one can be customized.

Note

By default Excel left justifies the contents of a cell if it contains text and right-justifies the cell if it contains a number. You can modify this justification by changing the alignment of the cell using Format → Cells → Alignment or by selecting the corresponding icon on the toolbar.

General

This is the default format applied to all cells. A number displays basically the way it is entered in the cell. If the cell is not wide enough to fit the entire number, scientific notation is used.

Number

Provides the ability to specify the actual number format by indicating the number of decimal places, if a comma should separate the thousands, and the method used to display negative numbers (a minus sign, in red, in parentheses, or in red and in parentheses).

Currency

Typically this format is selected because you want the number to have a currency symbol (a dollar sign in the United States), which you can select for your location. Just like the Number format, you can indicate the number of decimal places, if a comma ...