Eliminating Last 3, 6, or 9 Digits of a Number in Excel

 Last reviewed: November 2, 1994
Article ID: Q30972
The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Excel for Windows, versions 2.x, 3.0, 4.0
  • Microsoft Excel for OS/2, versions 2.2, 2.21, and 3.0

Digit elimination is the process of displaying numbers in some common base (for example, having a spreadsheet display all numbers in millions of dollars). Digit elimination is useful when creating reports with numbers that are very large because it eliminates the clutter of numerous zeros.

To display values so that only a limited number of zeros appear, create a custom number format. The format is 

   0,,
where each comma represents three zeros, as in the following example:

  1. Enter the number 60,000,000 in a cell.

  2. Format the number with: 

          0,,

After formatting, the number will appear as 60. However, calculations referencing that cell will use 60,000,000 as the value.

To maintain some of the commas in the above example, you can use a custom format #,###,. In this case, the number 60,000,000 will be displayed as 60,000 in Excel. However, Excel will still use the value 60,000,000 for all calculations referencing that cell.

KBCategory: kbusage
KBSubcategory:

Additional words: 2.00 2.0 2.01 2.1 2.10 2.2 2.21 2.20 3.00
3.0 4.00 4.0

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Last reviewed: November 2, 1994
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