Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Number Formatting Shortcuts.

Number Formatting Shortcuts

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated February 19, 2024)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365


3

The typical way that people apply formatting to cells is to use the tools on the ribbons or to display the Format Cells dialog box and make formatting choices. For those who prefer to not remove their hands from the keyboard, however, Excel also provides a number of handy shortcuts you can use to format your cells.

Shortcut Effect
Ctrl+Shift+~ General format
Ctrl+Shift+! Number format with two decimal places and thousands separator
Ctrl+Shift+$ Currency format with two decimal places and negatives in parentheses
Ctrl+Shift+# Date format
Ctrl+Shift+@ Time format with minutes and am/pm
Ctrl+Shift+% Percentage format with no decimal places
Ctrl+Shift+^ Scientific notation with two decimal places

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (10428) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Number Formatting Shortcuts.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Printing Workbooks in a Folder

This tip presents two techniques you can use to print multiple workbooks all at the same time. Both techniques involve ...

Discover More

Noting the Current Style

One of the drawbacks of the ribbon interface used in Word is that it can be difficult to easily see what style is applied ...

Discover More

Moving the Insertion Point to the End of a Line

When writing a macro to process the text in a document, you may need to move the insertion point to the end of a line. ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 2013 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access) with VBA programming, using it for writing macros, automating Office applications, and creating custom applications. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2013 today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Drawing Borders

Adding borders around cells is a common formatting task. You can make the task more intuitive by actually drawing the ...

Discover More

Hiding Individual Cells

Hiding information in one or more cells can be a challenge. This tip presents several different techniques that can help ...

Discover More

Automatically Formatting for Decimal Places

Cell contents and cell formatting are, in Excel, largely independent of each other. You can enter something in a cell and ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 4 + 9?

2024-02-19 11:15:00

J-M J

It would be great to know these shortcuts for non-American keyboards! Does anybody knows if a "translation" exists somewhere (MS, for example ) ?
Thank you!


2020-07-28 05:50:53

Peter Atherton

Sholom

I think the quickest way is the using the mouse, but format to two decimal places and then use ALT + H + 9. This reduces by 1 dp. then repeat for the next.


2020-07-27 08:47:51

Sholom Michael

Nice tip! What's the quickest way to get the number format with no decimal places and thousands separator?


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.