Nazmul Hossain Shovon
In this tutorial, I am going to show you 5 possible solutions to the excel decimal places problem. You can quickly use these fixes even in large datasets to modify the decimal values in any particular way. Throughout this tutorial, you will also learn some important excel tools and functions which will be very useful in any excel related task.
How to Fix Decimal Places Problem in Excel: 5 Possible Solutions
We have taken a concise dataset to explain the steps clearly. The dataset has approximately 6 rows and 2 columns. Initially, we formatted all the cells containing dollar values in Accounting format. For all the datasets, we have 2 unique columns which are Product and Price. Although we may vary the number of columns later on if that is needed.
1. Changing Excel Options
In this first solution, we will see how to change the default decimal places in Excel from excel options. Follow the steps below to do this.
Steps:
- First, click on the File tab at the top of the screen.
- Next, click on Options.
- Now, in the Excel Options window, click on Advanced and go to Editing options.
- Then, select the Automatically insert a decimal point checkbox to adjust the number of decimals that you want to show and click OK.
- Consequently, this will adjust the cell values according to the set criteria.
Read More: How to Change Decimal Places in Excel
2. Using Increase Or Decrease Decimal Button
We can also change decimal places in excel from the Increase or Decrease Decimal option. Let us see how to achieve this.
Steps:
- To begin with, select the cells from C5 to C10 and go to the Home tab at the top of the screen.
- Next, go to the Number section and click on the Increase Decimal or Decrease Decimal button to adjust the values as you need.
- As a result, you should get the number of decimal digits that you are looking for.
Read More: How to Reduce Decimals in Excel
3. Utilizing Format Cells Option
The Format Cells window in Excel gives us many options to format the values in cells. It also gives us the option to modify decimal places. Below are the steps to use this.
Steps:
- To start with this method, select the cells C5 to C10.
- After that, right-click and select Format Cells.
- Now, you can adjust the number of decimal places using the buttons as in the image below and click OK when you are done.
- Immediately, this should solve any problem that you had with decimal places.
Read More: Remove Decimals in Excel
4. Applying ROUND Function
The ROUND function in excel allows us to round a certain number to a given number of digits as input. Which means we can use this function to solve a problem related to decimal places. Let us see the detailed steps.
Steps:
- For this, go to cell D5 and insert the following formula:
=ROUND(C5,1)
- Next, press the Enter key and in this way, you can change the decimal places in your data values.
5. Using TRUNC Function
The TRUNC function in excel takes a number of digits as input and then truncates the cell value according to that. We can also apply this function to adjust decimal places to avoid any problems.
Steps:
- Firstly, navigate to cell D5 and type in the below formula:
=TRUNC(C5,1)
- Finally, press Enter to confirm the modification of the decimal digits.
Download Practice Workbook
You can download the practice workbook from here.
Conclusion
I hope that you were able to apply the fixes that I showed in this tutorial on 5 possible solutions to the excel decimal places problem. As you can see, there are quite a few ways to achieve this. So wisely choose the solution that suits your situation best. If you get stuck in any of the steps, I recommend going through them a few times to clear up any confusion. If you have any queries, please let me know in the comments.
