For example, if I want my negative numbers to show up in red color or I want my dates to show up in a specific format then how do I do that. Now the default setting is alright, but how do you change the format.
Where each data type is formatted as General (and follow the rules I mentioned above, based on whether it’s a positive number, negative number, 0, or text) So by default, the cell’s number formatting is: General General General General
Note that all these are separated by semi-colons ( ).Īnything that you enter in a cell in Excel would fall in either of these four categories and hence a custom format for it can be specified. Another data type that Excel can accept is dates, but since all date and time values are stored as numbers in Excel, these would be covered as a part of the positive number.įor any cell in a worksheet in Excel, you can specify how each of these data types should be shown in the cell.Īnd below is the syntax in which you can specify this format.