Part III: Creating Charts and Other Visualizations
number formats. In addition, the Number group contains some buttons. When you click one
of these buttons, the selected cells take on the specified number format. Table 23.1 summa-
rizes the formats that these buttons perform in the U.S. English version of Excel.
TA B L E 2 3 .1 Number-Formatting Buttons on the Ribbon
Button Name Formatting Applied
Accounting
Number Format
Adds a dollar sign to the left, separates thousands with a comma, and
displays the value with two digits to the right of the decimal point. This
is a drop-down control, so you can select other common currency
symbols.
Percent Style Displays the value as a percentage, with no decimal places. This button
applies a style to the cell.
Comma Style Separates thousands with a comma and displays the value with two dig-
its to the right of the decimal place. It’s like the Accounting number for-
mat but without the currency symbol. This button applies a style to the
cell.
Increase Decimal Increases the number of digits to the right of the decimal point by one.
Decrease Decimal Decreases the number of digits to the right of the decimal point by one.
Some of these buttons actually apply predefined styles to the selected cells. You can access Excel’s styles by using
the Style gallery in the Styles group on the Home tab. You can modify the styles by right-clicking the style name and
choosing Modify from the shortcut menu. See Chapter 5, “Formatting Worksheets,” for details.
Using shortcut keys to format numbers
Another way to apply number formatting is to use shortcut keys. Table 23.2 summarizes
the shortcut key combinations that you can use to apply common number formatting to the
selected cells or range. Notice that these are the shifted versions of the number keys along
the top of a typical keyboard.
TABLE 23.2 Number-Formatting Keyboard Shortcuts
Key Combination Formatting Applied
Ctrl+Shift+~ General number format (that is, unformatted values).
Ctrl+Shift+! Two decimal places, thousands separator, and a hyphen for negative
values.
Ctrl+Shift+@ Time format with the hour, minute, and AM or PM.
Ctrl+Shift+# Date format with the day, month, and year.
