You can use them in tables, charts, pivot tables, formulas, and directly on the worksheet. Many areas in Excel support number formats. Video: What is a number format What can you do with custom number formats?Ĭustom number formats can control the display of numbers, dates, times, fractions, percentages, and other numeric values. Using custom formats, you can do things like format dates to show month names only, format large numbers in millions or thousands, and display negative numbers in red.
As a bonus, they make worksheets look more consistent and professional. They are a great way to save time in Excel because they perform a huge amount of formatting automatically. The key benefit of number formats is that they change how a number looks without changing any data. Number formats control how numbers are displayed in Excel.
