This tutorial about cell format types in Excel is an essential part of your learning of Excel and will definitely do a lot of good to you in your future use of this software, as a lot of tasks in Excel sheets are based on cells format, as well as several errors are due to a bad implementation of it.
A good comprehension of the cell format types will build your knowledge on a solid basis to master Excel basics and will considerably save you time and effort when any related issue occurs.
A- Introduction
Excel software formats the cells depending on what type of information they contain.
To update the format of the highlighted cell, go to the “Home” tab of the ribbon and click, in the “Number” group of commands on the “Number Format” drop-down list.
The drop-down list allows the selection to be changed.
Cell formatting options in the “Number Format” drop-down list are:
- General
- Number
- Currency
- Accounting
- Short Date
- Long Date
- Time
- Percentage
- Fraction
- Scientific
- Text
- And the “More Number Formats” option.
Clicking the “More Number Formats” option brings up additional options for formatting cells, including the ability to do special and custom formatting options.
These options are discussed in detail in the below sections.
B- Cell format types in Excel
Cell format types in Excel are: General, Number, Currency, Accounting, Date, Time, Percentage, Fraction, Scientific, Text, Special (Zip Code, Zip Code + 4, Phone Number, Social Security Number), and Custom. You can get them from the “Number Format” drop-down list in the “Home” tab, or from the launcher arrow below it.
I will detail each one of them in the following sections:
1- General format
By default, cells are formatted as “General”, which could store any type of information. The General format means that no specific format is applied to the selected cell.
When information is typed into a cell, the cell format may change automatically. For example, if I enter “4/4/19” into a cell and press enter, then highlight the cell to view details about it, the cell format will be listed as “Date” instead of “General”.
Similarly, we can update a cell’s format before or after entering data to adjust the way the data appears. Changing the format of a cell to “Currency” will make it so information entered is displayed as a dollar amount.
Typing a number into this cell and pressing enter will not just show that number, but will instead format it accordingly.
Before pressing enter, Excel shows the value which was typed: “4”.
After pressing enter, the value is updated based on the formatting type selected.
Don’t let the format type showed in the illustration at the drop-down list confusing you; it is reflecting the cell below (i.e. E4), since we validated by an Enter.
2- Number format
Cells formatted as numbers behave differently than general formatted cells. By default, when a number is entered, or when a cell is formatted as a number already, the alignment of the information within the cell will be on the right instead of on the left. This makes it easier to read a list of numbers such as the below.
Note in the above screenshot that since we didn’t choose the “Number” format for our cells, they still have a “General” one. They are numbers for Excel (meaning, we can do calculations on them), but they didn’t have yet the number format and its formatting aspects:
You can set the formatting options for Excel numbers in the “Format Cells” dialog box.
To do that, select the cell or the range of cells you want to set the formatting options for their numbers, and go to the “Home” tab of the ribbon, then in the “Number” group of commands, click on the launcher of the dialog box (the arrow on the right-down side of the group).
Excel opens the “Format Cells” dialog box in its “Number” tab. Click in the “Category” pane on “Number”.
- In this dialog box, you can decide how many decimal places to display by updating options in the “Decimal places” field.
Note that this feature is also available in the “Home” tab of the ribbon where you can go to the “Number” group of commands and click the Increase Decimal 
or Decrease Decimal 
buttons.
Here is the result of consecutive increasing of decimal places on our example of data (1 decimal; 2 decimals; and 3 decimals):
- You can also decide if commas should be shown in the display as a thousand separator, by updating the “Use 1000 Separator (,)” option in the “Format Cells” dialog box.
This feature is also available in the “Home” tab of the ribbon by clicking the “Comma Style” button 
in the “Number” group of commands.
Note that using the Comma Style button will automatically set the format to Accounting.
- Another option from the Format Cells dialog box is to decide how negative numbers should display by using the “Negative numbers” field.
There are four options for displaying negative numbers.
- Display
negative numbers with a negative sign before the number. - Display
negative numbers in red. - Display
negative numbers in parentheses. - Display
negative numbers in red and in parentheses.
3- Currency format
Cells formatted as currency have a currency symbol such as a dollar sign $ immediately to the left of the number in the cell, and contain two numbers after the decimal by default.
The alignment of numbers in currency formatted cells will be on the right for readability.
Currency formatting options are similar to number formatting options, apart from the currency symbol display.
- As with regular number formatting, you can decide, in the “Format Cells” dialog box, how many decimal places to display by updating the field “Decimal places”.
You can also find this feature in the “Home” tab of the ribbon, by going to the “Number” group of commands and clicking the Increase Decimal or Decrease Decimal .
- You can also decide what currency symbol should be shown in the display by updating the “Symbol” field in the “Format Cells” dialog box.
- As with regular number formatting, you can also decide how negative numbers should display by updating the “Negative numbers” field in the “Format Cells” dialog box.
There are four options for displaying negative numbers.
- Display
negative numbers with a negative sign before the number. - Display
negative numbers in red. - Display
negative numbers in parentheses. - Display
negative numbers in red and in parentheses.
4- Accounting format
Like with the currency format, cells formatted as accounting have a currency symbol such as a dollar sign $; however, this symbol is to the far left of the cell, while the alignment of numbers in the cell is on the right. Accounting numbers contain two numbers after the decimal by default.
Clicking the “Accounting Number Format” button 
in the “Number” group of commands of the “Home” tab, will quickly format a cell or cells as Accounting.
The down arrow to the right of the Accounting Number Format button allows selection between common symbols used for accounting, including English (dollar sign), English (pound), Euro, Chinese, and French symbols.
Accounting formatting options in the “Format Cells” dialog box (“Home” tab of the ribbon, in the “Number” group of commands, click on the launcher of the “Number Format” dialog box), are similar to number and currency formatting options.
- You can decide how many decimal places to display by updating its option in the “Format Cells” dialog box.
As mentioned before in this tutorial, this feature is also available directly in the “Home” tab of the ribbon by clicking the Increase Decimal or Decrease Decimal buttons in the “Number” group of commands.
- You can also decide in the “Format Cells” dialog box, what currency symbol should be shown in the display by using the “Symbol” drop-down list.
This dropdown gives a much broader list of options than the “Accounting Number Format” option in the “Home” tab of the ribbon.
Note that with the Accounting formatting option, negative numbers display in parentheses by default. There are not options to change this.
5- Date format
There are options for “Short Date” and “Long Date” in the “Number Format” dropdown list of the “Home” tab.
Short date shows the date with slashes separating month, day, and year. The order of the month and day may vary depending on your computer’s location settings.
Long date shows the date with the day of the week, month, day, and year separated by commas.
More options for formatting dates are available in the “Format Cells” dialog box (accessible by clicking in the “Number Format” dropdown list of the “Home” tab and choosing the “More Number Formats” option at the bottom).
- You can choose from a long list of available date formats.
- You can update the location settings used for formatting the date. This will alter the list of format options in the above list and will adjust the display and potentially the order of the elements (day, month, year) within the date.
Note the below example when we switch from English (United States) format to English (United Kingdom) format.
6- Time format
Cells formatted as time display the time of day. The default time display is based on your computer’s location settings.
Time formatting options are available in the “Format Cells” dialog box (accessible by choosing the “More Number Formats” option at the bottom of the “Number Format” dropdown list in the “Home” tab of the ribbon).
- You can choose from a long list of available time formats.
- You can update the location settings used for formatting the time. This will alter the list of format options in the above list and will adjust the display.
7- Percentage format
Cells formatted as percentage display a percent sign to the right of the number. You can change the format of a cell to a percentage using the “Number Format” dropdown list, or by clicking the “Percent Style” button 
. Both options are accessible from the “Home” tab of the ribbon, in the “Number” group of commands.
Note that updating a number to a percentage will expect that the number already contains the decimal. For example:
A cell containing the value 0.08, as a percentage, will show 8%.
A cell containing the value 8, as a percentage, will show 800%.
Percentage formatting options are available in the “Format Cells” dialog box, accessible by clicking on “More Number Formats” of the “Number Format” dropdown list in the “Home” tab of the ribbon.
8- Fraction format
Cells formatted as a fraction display with a slash symbol separating the numerator and denominator.
Fraction formatting options are available in the “Format Cells” dialog box, accessible by clicking in the “Home” tab of the ribbon, on “More Number Formats” of the “Number Format” dropdown list.
- Note that
when selecting the format to use for a fraction, Excel will round to the
nearest fraction where the formatting criteria can be met.
As an example, if the formatting option selected is “Up to one digit”, entering a fraction with two digits will cause rounding to occur. For example, with the setting of “Up to one digit”,
If we enter a value of 7/16, the value displayed will be 4/9, as converting to 9ths was the option with only one digit which required the least amount of rounding.
For another example, if the formatting option selected is “As quarters”, entering a fraction that cannot be expressed in quarters (divisible by four) will also cause rounding to occur.
If we enter a value of 5/8, the value displayed will be 3/4. Excel rounded up to 6/8, or 3/4, which was the closest option divisible by four.
- Also note
that for the formatting options with “Up to x digits”, Excel will always round
down to the lowest exact equivalent fraction when possible.
For example, if we enter a value of 2/4 with one of these formatting options active, the value displayed will be 1/2, as this is the mathematical equivalent. This behavior will not take place for formatting options “As…”, since these specifically determine what the denominator should be.
- Fractions listed as more than a whole (meaning the numerator is a higher number than the denominator), such as 7/4 will automatically be adjusted into a whole number and a fraction 13/4, where the fraction follows the formatting rules selected.
9- Scientific format
Scientific format, otherwise known as Exponential Notation, allows very large and small numbers to be accurately represented within a cell, even when the size of the cell cannot accommodate the size of the numbers.
The way exponential notation works is to theoretically place a decimal in a spot that would make the number shorter, then describe where to move that decimal to return to the original number.
Examples with large numbers, where the decimal is moved to the left:
For the number 300 to be expressed in exponential notation, Excel moves the decimal from after the whole number 300.00 to between the 3 and the 00. This is typed out as E+02 since the decimal was moved two places to the left. The other examples are similar, where the decimal was moved 6 and 12 places to the left.
Examples with small numbers, where the decimal is moved to the right:
For the number 0.2 to be expressed in exponential notation, Excel moves the decimal to create a whole number 2. This is typed out as E-01 since the decimal was moved one place to the right. The other examples are similar, where the decimal was moved 4 and 10 places to the right.
Scientific formatting options are listed in the “Format Cells” dialog box, accessible by going to the “Home” tab of the ribbon, and clicking the “More Number Formats” option of the “Number Format” dropdown list.
The only option available is to alter the number of decimal places shown in the number prior to the scientific notation.
For example, for the value 11.43 formatted with the scientific format, if we change the Decimal places from 2 to 1, the display will change as follows.
Two decimals: 
One decimal: 
10- Text format
Cells can be formatted as Text through the “Number Format” dropdown list, in the “Number” group of commands of the “Home” tab.
Using the Text format in Excel allows values to be entered as they are, without Excel changing them per the above formatting rules.
In general, when entering a text in a cell, you won’t need to set its type to “Text”, as the default format type “General” is sufficient in most cases.
This may be useful when you want to display numbers with leading zeros, want to have spaces before or after numbers or letters, or when you want to display symbols that Excel normally uses for formulas.
Below are examples of some fields formatted as Text.
Note that when a number is formatted as Text, Excel will display a symbol showing that there could be a possible error 
.
Clicking the cell, then clicking the pop-up icon will show what the error may be and offer suggestions for resolution.
11- Special format
Special format offers four options in the “Format Cells” dialog box, accessible by going to the “Home” tab of the ribbon, and clicking the launcher arrow in the “Number” group of commands.
- Zip Code
When less than five numbers are entered in Zip Code format, leading zeros will be added to bring the total to five numbers.
When more than five numbers are entered in Zip Code format, all numbers will be displayed, even though this does not meet the format criteria.
- Zip Code + 4
Zip Code + 4 format automatically creates a dash symbol – before the last four numbers in the zip code.
When less than nine numbers are entered in Zip Code + 4 format, leading zeros will be added to bring the total to nine numbers.
When more than nine numbers are entered in Zip Code + 4 format, extra numbers are displayed prior to the dash symbol –.
- Phone Number
Phone Number format automatically creates a dash – before the last four numbers in the phone number. This format also adds parentheses ( ) around the area code when an area code is entered.
When less than the expected number of digits are entered in Phone Number format, only the entered digits will be displayed, starting from the end of the phone number, as shown on the third and fourth lines, below.
When more than the expected number of digits are entered in Phone Number format, extra numbers are displayed within the area code parentheses.
Note that Phone Number format in Excel does not handle the number 1 before an area code. This entry would be treated like any other extra number.
- Social Security Number
Social Security Number format automatically creates a dash – before the last four numbers in the social security number and a dash before the last six numbers in the social security number.
When less than nine numbers are entered in Social Security Number format, leading zeros will be added to bring the total to nine numbers.
When more than nine numbers are entered in Social Security Number format, extra numbers are displayed prior to the first dash –.
12- Custom format
Custom formats can be used or added through the “Format Cells” dialog box, accessible from the “Number” group of commands in the “Home” tab of the ribbon by clicking the “Number Format” launcher arrow.
This can be useful if the above formatting options do not work for your needs. Custom number formats can be created or updated by typing into the “Type” field of the “Format Cells” dialog box.
When creating a new custom format, be sure to use an existing custom format that you are okay with changing.
Custom number formats are separated, at maximum, into four parts separated by semicolons ; .
- Part 1: How
to handle positive number values - Part 2: How
to handle negative number values - Part 3: How
to handle zero number values - Part 4: How
to handle text values
Note that if fewer parts are included in the custom format coding, Excel will determine how best to merge the above options: As an example, if two parts are listed, positive and zero values will be grouped.
Note that Excel may update the formatting of some fields to Custom automatically depending on what actions are taken on the field.
C- Common issues caused by wrong cell format types in Excel
1- Common issues due to wrong cell format types in Excel
The most common problems you may encounter with a wrong cell format type in Excel are of 3 types:
– Getting a wrong value.
– Getting an error.
– Formula displayed as-is and not calculated.
Let’s illustrate these 3 cases with some examples:
- Getting a wrong value
This may occur when you enter a value in an already formatted cell with an inappropriate format type, or when you apply a different format to a cell already containing a value.
The following table details some examples:
- Getting an error
This occurs when you enter a text preceded with a symbol of a dash, or plus, or equal, as an element of a list.
Excel wrongly interprets the text as a formula and show the error “The formula contains unrecognized text”.
- Formula displayed as-is and not calculated
In the following example, we tried to calculate the total of prices from cell B2 to B6 using the Excel SUM function, but Excel doesn’t calculate our formula and just displayed it as-is.
The source of the problem is that the result cell, B7, was previously formatted as text before entering the formula.
2- How to correct wrong cell format type issues in Excel
To correct cell format type issues in Excel, apply the right format in the “Number Format” drop-down list, and sometimes, you’ll also need to re-enter the content of the cell.
For cells with formulas displayed as text, choose the “General” format, then double click in the cell and press Enter.
Jeff Golden is an experienced IT specialist and web publisher that has worked in the IT industry since 2010, with a focus on Office applications.
On this website, Jeff shares his insights and expertise on the different Office applications, especially Word and Excel.
