Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, and 2013. 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: Altering the Displayed Format of Numbers to the Nearest 100.
Frank asked if there is a way, using a custom number format, to round the display of numbers to the nearest 10, 100, etc., without affecting the original numbers.
The answer is that there is a way, and there isn't a way. (Don't you love those answers?) There are custom number formats that allow you to round the display to the nearest thousand or the nearest million, as follows:
[<=500] "0";#,"000" [<=500000] "0";#,,"000000"
The first format will round to the nearest thousand, and the second will round to the nearest million. If you are looking for a custom format that will round to some other power of 10, you are out of luck, however. In those instances, the best solution may be to simply create another worksheet that uses formulas for rounding and uses the contents of the original worksheet as the source.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (10781) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, and 2013. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Altering the Displayed Format of Numbers to the Nearest 100.
Comprehensive VBA Guide Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is the language used for writing macros in all Office programs. This complete guide shows both professionals and novices how to master VBA in order to customize the entire Office suite for their needs. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2010 today!
Custom formats are great for defining how a specific value in a cell should look. They aren't that great at doing complex ...
Discover MoreWhen working with very large numbers in a worksheet, you may want the numbers to appear in a shortened notation, with an ...
Discover MoreIf you are familiar with decimal tabs in Word, you may wonder if you can set the same sort of alignment in Excel. The ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
2018-06-22 05:45:31
Mark Watson
Another way (again sort of) is to use the exponential formatting that's visible in the Custom format type on the Number tab of the Format Cells pop-up.
##0.0E+0 - this will show the number rounded to the 100s place if the number can be expressed with the engineering notation of kilo. And of course you would need to be comfortable with using exponential notation.
2016-04-04 18:49:28
Chris
You can also use ROUND() with a negative number in the num_digits field. For example:
=ROUND(1563,-1) will display 1560
=ROUND(1563,-2) will display 1600
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.
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2018 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, and 2013. 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: 
Comments