Excel is capable of processing a wide variety of data, and is often used for financial data. Here, it’s often useful to display numbers in currency values. Fortunately, Excel is well-equipped to handle currency data from around the world. Let’s learn how to display currencies in Microsoft Excel.
How to Display Currencies in Excel
Consider the number 500. Is it a numerical value? A sum? A price? If it’s a financial value, this makes 500 a currency. But until you have the appropriate currency symbol displayed with it, this won’t be very obvious to other users of your spreadsheets.
Currency formatting in Excel is ready to help you. Excel has a vast library of built-in currency information that you can easily apply to any numerical value inside your spreadsheets.
To get started, click into any empty cell in your workbook. Then, type in a number. We’ll use 500 in this example. Then, with the cell selected, find the Home tab on Excel’s ribbon. Near the middle, you’ll see the Cell Format dropdown menu. Go ahead and click on it.
You’ll see a list of options appear. One reads Currency. If – and only if – you’re working with U.S. dollars, you can simply click this, and your value will convert to $500.00. But if you want a different currency, click More Number Formats at the bottom of the dropdown.
On the Format Cells menu that appears, click Currency under the Category section. Here, in the Symbol dropdown, you can choose from a vast list of world currencies. Below, you can also choose how to display negative numbers, by placing them in parentheses or even shading them in red.
When you’re finished, click OK. Excel will apply your settings to your number input.
As you can see, it’s easy to display, modify, and work with currencies right inside Microsoft Excel.
