Excel Custom Format For Mac Address
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It is very important to understand how cell formats are seen by Excel.Excel see a cells format as having four Sections. These are, from left toright Positive numbers, Negative Numbers, Zero Values and Text values.Each of these Sections are separated by a semi colon (;). If you create acustom number format you do not have to specify all four sections. By thisI mean, if you included only two sections, the first section would be usedfor both positive numbers and zero values, while the second section wouldbe used for negative numbers. If you only used one section, all number typeswould use that one format. Text is only affected by custom formats when we use allfour sections, the text would use the last section.
It is also very important to understand that the formatting of a cellsvalue does not effect its underlying true value. To show this we can type any numberinto cell A1, then go to Format>Cells-Number-Custom and, using anyformat as a Starting point, type in 'Hello',with the quotation marks,now click OK. Now, while the cell displays the word Hello, it's truevalue can be seen by selecting the cell and looking in the Formula bar, orby pressing F2. If you were to reference this cell in a formula, e.g. =A1+20 the result cell would also take on the custom format. If we were to referencecell A1 and many other cells that have any standard Excel format, e.g. =SUM(A1:A10) our result cell would still take on the custom format of cellA1. This is an educated guess by Excel that you want the result cell formattedthe same as the referenced cell(s). If the referenced cells contain more than onetype of format, any custom format will take precedence. So, you must always rememberthat Excel uses a cells true value and not it's displayed value. This cancatch out the unwary if you are calculating cells that are formatted for no, orfew, decimal places. For example, enter 1.4 in A1 and 1.4 inA2, format both these cells to show zero decimal places and then place =A1+A2 and the result is 3. Excel does have an option called Precisionas displayed, found under Tools>Options-Calculation, but you should beaware that this option will permanently change stored values in cells fromfull precision (15 digits) to whatever format, including decimal places, is displayed.In other words, once it's been checked and given the OK, there is no turningback.
The default format for any cell is 'General'. If we enter anumber into a cell, Excel will often guess the number format thatis most appropriate. For example, if you type in 10%,Excel will formatthe cell as a percentage. Most often Excel gets this correct, but sometimes we needto change this. One point I will make on this is, when using Format>Cells,resist the temptation of forcing a left, right or centre horizontal format! By defaultnumbers are right aligned and text left aligned. If you leave this alone, you cantell at a glance whether a cell is text or numeric, as in the case of my earlierexample where cell A1 appears to hold text, when in fact, it holds a number.
Ok, getting back to the all important Sections that a formattedcell contains. Within these Sections we are able to use Formatting Codes.It is these codes that force Excel to make our data appear how we would like.Let's use a simple Example. Suppose you would like any negative number to appearinside parenthesis, and all numbers, positive, negative or zero, to show two decimalplaces. The Custom Format we could use is: 0.00_ ;(-0.00). If you also wantednegatives to be red, use: 0.00_ ;[Red](-0.00) Note the use of the squarebrackets in the Section for negative numbers. This is the Formatting Codethat tells Excel to make the number red.
There are many different Formatting Codes that can be used withinSections of a Custom Format. The tables below show these. The Table is
Formatting Codes
Number Code | Description |
General | General number format. |
0 (zero) | Digit placeholder. This code padsthe value with zeros to fill the format. |
# | Digit placeholder. This code doesnot display extra zeros. |
? | Digit placeholder. This code leavesa space for insignificant zeros but does not display them. |
. (period) | Decimal number. |
% | Percentage. Microsoft Excel multipliesby 100 and adds the % character. |
, (comma) | Thousands separator. A comma followedby a placeholder scales the number by a thousand. |
E+ E- e+ e- | Scientific notation. |
Text Code | Description |
$ - + / ( ) : space | These characters are displayedin the number. To display any other character, enclose the character inquotation marks or precede it with a backslash. |
character | This code displays the characteryou specify. Note Typing !, ^, &, ', ~, {, }, =, <, or > automatically places a backslashin front of the character. |
'text' | This code displays text. |
* | This code repeats the next characterin the format to fill the column width. Note Only one asterisk per section of a format is allowed. |
_ (underscore) | This code skips the width of thenext character. This code is commonly used as '_)' (without the quotationmarks) to leave space for a closing parenthesis in a positive number formatwhen the negative number format includes parentheses. This allows the valuesto line up at the decimal point. |
@ | Text placeholder. |
Date Code | Description |
m | Month as a number without leadingzeros (1-12) |
mm | Month as a number with leadingzeros (01-12) |
mmm | Month as an abbreviation (Jan -Dec) |
mmmm | Unabbreviated Month (January -December) |
d | Day without leading zeros (1-31) |
dd | Day with leading zeros (01-31) |
ddd | Week day as an abbreviation (Sun- Sat) |
dddd | Unabbreviated week day (Sunday- Saturday) |
yy | Year as a two-digit number (forexample, 96) |
yyyy | Year as a four-digit number (forexample, 1996) |
Time Code | Description |
h | Hours as a number without leadingzeros (0-23) |
hh | Hours as a number with leadingzeros (00-23) |
m | Minutes as a number without leadingzeros (0-59) |
mm | Minutes as a number with leadingzeros (00-59) |
s | Seconds as a number without leadingzeros (0-59) |
ss | Seconds as a number with leadingzeros (00-59) |
AM/PM am/pm | Time based on the twelve-hour clock |
Miscellaneous Code | Description |
[BLACK], [BLUE], [CYAN], [GREEN],[MAGENTA], [RED], [WHITE], [YELLOW], [COLOR n] | These codes display the charactersin the specified colors. Note n is a value from 1 to 56 and refers to the nth color in thecolor palette. |
[Conditionvalue] | Condition may be <, >, =,>=, <=, <> and value may be any number. Note A number format may contain up to two conditions. |
If you do a lot of Custom Formatting you might find it useful to printthese tables.
Lets look at the last Formatting Codes, the Comparison Operators.Assume we want our custom number format: 0.00_ ;[Red](-0.00) to only displaynegative numbers as red font in brackets IF the number is less than -100.For this we could use: 0.00_ ;[Red][<-100](-0.00);0.00 It is the FormattingCodes: [Red][<-100](-0.00) placed in the Section for negativenumbers that make this possible.
One format that is often asked for is to display dollar values as words.For this we can use the Custom Format of: 0 'Dollars and' .00 'Cents'. Thisformat will force a number entered as 55.25 will be displayed as 55 Dollars and.25 Cents. If you wish to actually convert numbers to dollars and cents, seethese two Custom Functions from Microsoft.
Let's look at one more Custom Format where we wish to display the wordsLow, Average or High along with the number entered. For thiswe could use: [<11]'Low'* 0;[>20]'High'* 0;'Average'* 0 Note the use of theFormatting Code * This code repeats the next character in the format tofill the column width Meaning all our Low, Average or Hightext will be forced to the right, while the number will be forced to the left.Workbook you can Download that shows many of the abilities of Custom Formats.
As you are no doubt aware, you can use custom formats to change theway Excel displays Text, Numbers, Dates and Times. What you may not realize is thatby changing a cell or cells formatting you are NOT changing it's underlying value.Even if you are counting drugs for a pharmacy or selling generics, you can use this function.So even if you use the custom format option in Excel to force Excel to display thenumber 20 as 'Twenty' you can still use the cell in a calculation.
Below are just some of the custom formats that can be applied to cellsin Excel. For all examples you must select the cell or cells and go to Format>Cells>Number>Custom.Then use any one of the predefined formats as a Starting point.
Dates
For all these examples I will use the date: 25/12/2001
To display as: | Use the format: |
251201 | dmy |
Tues-12-2001 | ddd-m-yyyy |
Tuesday 25-12-2001 | dddd d-m-yyyy |
Tuesday December 25 2001 | dddd mmmm d yyyy |
Christmas Day | 'Christmas Day' |
The format dddd can also be used on a date to quickly find out theweekday of a specific date.
Times
For all these examples I will use the time 18:30:30
To display as: | Use the format: |
1830 | hhmm |
1830 hrs | hhmm 'hrs' |
18 hours and 30 minutes | hh 'hours and' mm 'minutes' |
6:30pm | h:mm AM/PM |
If you are working with times and you want Excel to display hours greaterthan 24, use the custom format [h]:mm:ss
If you want to display the amount of Minutes that have passed sincemidnight, use the format [m]. The same applies for Seconds ie; use [s]
Currency
There is not an awful lot more you can do with currency that Exceldoesn't allow with it's built in formats. But there is one and that is display theamount as dollars and cents. You can easily display $75.89 as:
75 dollars and 89 cents. To do this use the custom format: 0 'dollars and'.00 'cents'
Text
As with currency there is not an awful lot more you can do with text,but here is one tip. Let's say you want a list of text entries but do not want anyblank space after the text. That is you want the entire cell filled. To do thisuse the custom format: @*. This will fill all the space after the last letter ofa word with period (fullstop) so your list will look like:
Dog.........
Mouse.......
Elephant.....
There are many other types of custom formats you can use.
Don't forget there is alsoConditionalFormatting
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Sometimes when I’m working with an Excel worksheet and I want a cell to look a certain way, I run into what appears to be a limitation in the program. It might be trying to enter product numbers with leading zeros or trying to make numbers show their unit of measure in the cell along side them.
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Luckily, in most cases there is a simple solution to the problem. In this article I’ll step you through some of the typical formatting issues you’re likely to encounter in the business world and how to work around them.
Units of Measure
Try this for size: type '20 lbs' in a cell, press Enter, and then try and multiply that cell’s value by, say, two. It can't be done. You cannot add a unit of measure to a number and have it still behave like a number. As soon as you add 'lbs' to the cell entry, Excel turns your number into a piece of text. Multiplying a cell containing text simply doesn’t work.
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There are two possible solutions to this ‑‑ one simple and one smart. The simplest solution is to place the text 'lbs' entry in the cell to the right of your value. This works but it’s not appropriate in all situations, and there is a smarter solution using Excel's Custom Formats feature.
To see this at work, type the number 20 into a cell and press Enter. Click on the cell to select it, and choose Format > Cells > Number tab. At the bottom of the Category list, click Custom and, on the left of the dialog, a list of custom formats will appear. In the box marked 'Type,' enter the following information:
0.00 'lbs'
Check the Sample area to make sure the number looks the way you want, and click OK. The number is padded out to show two decimal places with the letters lbs appearing after it. Because the text 'lbs' is part of the format and not the cell contents, the cell still contains a number so you can perform math on it.
Adding text to a cell using a custom format instead of typing it clearly labels the data and still lets Excel calculate it. (Click for larger image). |
Padding Numbers
In the previous example you saw that we can format numbers and force then to display a fixed number of decimal places. The 0.00 part of the custom format makes this happen. For example, type the following into a cell:
0 'lbs'
The number appears as an integer – so 20.1 would appear as 20 lbs and 20.5 lbs will show as 21 lbs having been rounded up. The cell contents are still 20.5 so that value will be used in calculations, but the cell will show as 21 lbs.
When you are creating a custom format you need to decide how you want your numbers to display. Use:
- 0 for an integer
- 0.0 for a single decimal place
- 0.00 for two decimal places, and so on.
If you use 00.00 then you will get two numbers to the left of the decimal place so 1.5 will display as 01.50 and 20 will display as 20.00.
A custom format lets you position more digits either in front of or after the original number. (Click for larger image). |
Leading Zeros
This leads us neatly into the next problem. If you’re in a business that sells products with product numbers, you will often have cause to type various product numbers into Excel cells. If you have product numbers that start with one or more zeros, Excel will knock off the leading zeros from your product numbers. So, 00123 will be displayed as 123.
The solution is to use a custom format to reinstate the zeros. So, if you have five digit product numbers, select the cells containing the product numbers, choose Format > Cells > Number tab, and click on Custom and, in the Type box type:
00000
When you click OK, all the zeros in the product number will redisplay.
Product numbers with leading zeros pose another problem that custom formats can help solve. (Click for larger image). |
Managing Large Numbers
If you’re working with very large numbers, for example in the tens or hundreds of thousands or millions, you will encounter issues when you chart this data. Very large numbers will expand the area taken up by the Y-axis of the chart and they aren't easy to read when they get too big.
The solution is to reduce the look of the numbers to a more manageable value. To do this, right-click the chart's Y-axis and choose Format Axis > Number tab. Click on Custom – as you can see, you can create custom formats for chart axes too. In the Type box, type the following format to reduce numbers that are in the millions:
#, “M”
This reduces 1,000,000 so it displays as 1M.
If you want to reduce numbers in the thousands, type this format into the box:
#, 'K'
This reduces 15,000 to display as 15K.
These custom formats simplify your numbers and make them easier to read and understand. The same formats work just fine on worksheet data too.
You can use a custom format to reduce large numbers on chart axes and make them easier to read. (Click for larger image). |
Built-in Smart Formats
Now let’s move to the situation where you want to include phone numbers in a worksheet. In the U.S. that means you will be entering a nine-digit number into a cell. This is a very long number and, to ensure consistent number formatting, it would be nice if Excel could do the work for you.
The solution is to use a built-in format. To see it at work, type a phone number into a cell and select that cell. Choose Format > Cells > Number tab, and this time click the Special option. Make sure that the Local value is set to English (United States) and you will see four special formats. Select Phone Number, and the data will be formatted more neatly as a regular phone number.
Lining Up Numbers
There are other solutions that you can use where you want to display up to a certain number of digits after the decimal point. So, if you want to enter 2.5 and 2.45 and have both appear as typed but with the decimal points lined up, you can use this custom format:
?.??
In this case each number will appear as typed but they will be positioned so their decimal points are directly under each other for easier reading.
It is also possible to add colors to your formats. To see this at work, type a series of numbers including some positive and negative ones and some zeros. Now format them with this custom format:
[blue] 0.0; [red] 0.00;;
This shows positive numbers as blue, negative as red and hides zero values. The format code to the left of the first semi colon manages positive numbers, the one next to it handles negative values and the one to the far right handles zero values; because there is nothing listed there, nothing shows.
Helen Bradley is a respected international journalist writing regularly for small business and computer publications in the USA, Canada, South Africa, UK and Australia. You can learn more about her at her Web site, HelenBradley.com
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This article was originally published on February 17, 2009
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