Excel 2010 Bible

Part IV: Using Advanced Excel Features

564

Displaying leading zeros

To display leading zeros, create a custom number format that uses the 0 character. For example, if

you want all numbers to display with ten digits, use the number format string that follows. Values

with fewer than ten digits will display with leading zeros.

0000000000

You also can force all numbers to display with a fixed number of leading zeros. The format string

that follows, for example, appends three zeros to the beginning of each number:

“000”#

In the following example, the format string uses the repeat character code (an asterisk) to apply

enough leading zeros to fill the entire width of the cell:

*00

Displaying fractions

Excel supports quite a few built-in fraction number formats (select the Fraction category on the

Number tab in the Format Cells dialog box). For example, to display the value .125 as a fraction

with 8 as the denominator, select As Eighths (4/8) from the Type list (see Figure 24.3).

FIGURE 24.3

Selecting a number format to display a value as a fraction.