If you usually work with numbers in Excel, you may have noticed that sometimes Excel rounds them automatically. This can be frustrating if you need to display or use the exact values.
Excel rounds numbers for two main reasons:
- To fit the numbers within the cell boundaries: If the number is too long, Excel tries scientific notations and compacts the number. However, Excel still stores the full value in the cell and uses it for calculations.
- To apply the number format: If you format a number with a specific number of decimal places, such as two, Excel will round the number to that precision.
In this article, we will explain how to stop Excel from rounding the numbers.
We’ll cover the following three ways:
Change the cell format
Excel provides many options that you can choose for the cell format, including General, Number, Currency, Accounting, Short Date, Long Date, Time, Percentage, and Fraction, among others.
When you select a particular format, the cell then is modified to show that relevant information. For example, if you select the Number option, the cell shows more numbers than the General setting. You get the idea.
To change the cell format, head to Home, click on the drop-down menu, and select Number.
You can also use the following keyboard shortcut to change the cell format: Ctrl + 1. After that, select Number from the left panel, select how many numbers after the decimal you want to see directly and select the Negative numbers format; when you’re done, press OK.
You can also change the cell format to Currency or Accounting. While dealing with currency and accounting situations, usually there is no rounding off as it may give wrong results.
So, Excel doesn’t change the value of the numbers after the decimals and you can see the full range of numbers.
Also read: How to add a secondary axis in Excel?
Change the decimal places
The second way to stop Excel from rounding off numbers is by changing the decimal places. The more you move the decimal to the right, the more numbers you can see in the cell.
Open Excel, head to Home, and click on the right decimal buttons. Take a look at the screenshot above to get an idea. Each click will show you the exact number in the cell.
Also read: How to calculate the percentage change in Excel?
Stop Excel from rounding off by changing the cell size
The third way to stop Excel from rounding off numbers is by increasing the cell size.
Long press the right margin of the cell column header and move the mouse to the right. This will increase the cell size, and your number will be displayed in its entirety.
In conclusion, you can use the three methods that we have listed above as per your preference to stop Excel from rounding off.
Also read: How to delete hidden rows in Excel?
