Understanding Number Pictures

Each number that you would want to display may consist of several elements:

	Digits that must be shown (e.g. zeros in a number with fixed decimal places);

	Digits that need not be shown (thousands when the number is 500);

	decimal points;

	thousands indicators;

	currency symbols;

	percent symbols;

	other symbols and number separators

The format descriptors for each of these is as follows:

0 numbers that must be shown

# numbers that do not need to be shown, but the digits must be represented in the format for other reasons

. where the decimal point appears

, thousands separator

% multiply by 100 and add a percent sign

E- scientific notation

"text" displays the text "text" in the cell

[colour] Puts the contents of the cell into colour colour.

So, for example, the following formats might be useful. The number entered into the cell is 16.475 in every case:

Format               Display in the Cell    Note
0.00                 16.48                  Rounds it up.
#.##                 16.475
0,000.00             0,016.48
0%                   1648%                  Multiplied by 100 with % sign
"Wrong Number"       Wrong Number           Just the text is displayed.

[Blue] #,##0.00;[Red]-(#,##0.00);[Green]0.00;"Rubbish"

Content        Display in Cell            Colour of contents
12             12.00                      Blue
-12            -(12.00)                   Red
0              0.00                       Green
Any Text       Rubbish                    Black

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