How to Change Decimal Places in Excel?

There may come a time when they have to work with decimal places depending on what a person is doing in Microsoft Excel. This risewindows article will show you how to change the number of decimal places in an Excel spreadsheet. Depending on your current Excel version, the steps may vary depending on Excel 2021, 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010, and 2007.

How to Change Decimal Places in Excel?

You can use any of these methods to change the number of decimal places in Microsoft Excel.

Using Increase Decimal and Decrease Decimal Buttons

If you have already entered number(s) in a worksheet, you can use the buttons on the toolbar to increase or decrease the number of decimal places shown. Here is how to do it.

Step 1. Firstly, open your Excel worksheet.

Step 2. Now, select the cell(s) you want to format.

Step 3. Then, click on the Home tab on the menu bar and move your cursor towards the Number group. Here, you will find Increase Decimal and Decrease Decimal buttons. You can show more or fewer digits after the decimal point by selecting the Increase Decimal or Decrease Decimal button.

Through Built-In Number Format

The Number Format dialog box in Excel allows you to create custom decimal rules for the various built-in number types.

Step 1. First., open your Excel worksheet.

Step 2. Now, select the cell(s) you want to format.

Step 3. Then, click on the Home tab on the menu bar and move your cursor towards the Number group.

Step 4. After that, click on the Number Format drop-down menu.

Step 5. Next, select the More Number Formats option.

Step 6. Then, the Format Cells dialog will appear. Here, switch to the Number tab and select Number as Category in the left sidebar.

Step 7. After that, enter the number of decimal places in the Decimal places box.

Step 8. Finally, click OK.

By Setting a Default Decimal Places Number

To set the number of decimal places to display automatically, you can follow these steps:

Step 1. Firstly, open Microsoft Excel on your computer.

Step 2. Click on the File in the menu bar.

Step 3. Then, click the Options in backstage.

Step 4. After that, switch to the Advanced tab when the Excel Options panel appears.

Step 5. Next, check the checkbox, “Automatically insert a decimal point.”

Step 6. Lastly, enter a new number in the “Places” box and click the OK button.

Now, let me see in an example how it works. By default, the Excel program sets Places to 2. So, if you enable the “Automatically insert a decimal point” when you type 2345, it will automatically change to 23.45. To make it 2.345, you’ll need to enter 3 in the Places value.

That’s it for the article.

I hope this post will be informative to you.

Good luck & keep reading, guys.