When you work in Excel, you may find yourself using many types of numbers. On occasion, you may be working with Arabic numbers. In this case, you’ll likely want to convert them to English. Fortunately, Excel makes this very easy. Let’s learn how to convert Arabic numbers to English in Microsoft Excel.
How to Convert Arabic Numbers to English in Excel
Imagine that you’re sent a list of numbers to work with in Excel. But they’re formatted as Arabic numbers, rather than English. Chances are, you’ll want to convert them to make them easier to read. To get started, let’s look at a series of Arabic numbers in Excel. These are pasted in, and you can make a couple of observations.
For example, click into cell A1, containing the first Arabic number. No matter how the numbers are formatted, Arabic or English, Excel automatically treats them as numerical values. Notice that in the formula bar, you’ll see the English number. However, the cells display Arabic numbers.
To change the Arabic numbers to English, you’ll need to work on Excel’s Home tab. You’ll find this on the ribbon, the series of menus and tabs at the top of the Excel window. Just right of center, you’ll see the Cell Format dropdown menu.
The dropdown should read Custom with Arabic numbers in place. This is how Excel customarily treats special characters.
To change Arabic numbers to English, click on the Cell Format dropdown. Then, click Number from your list of options. You’ll see Excel convert the numbers instantly. You can work cell by cell, or select multiple cells to make the change.
As you can see, it’s easy to convert Arabic numbers to English in Excel. This is a quick and easy way to make numbers work well for you, in just seconds.
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