Whether you are a student, an employee, an analyst, or whatever field you are from, once in your lifetime you must have used Excel. The basic purpose of Excel was initially to improve the productivity of users and it works the way you operate it. However, sometimes you may encounter issues while working on Excel sheets.
One of these issues is Excel changes numbers without permission. Did you notice why does Excel keep changing my numbers? Today, you will get to know why is Excel changing numbers and how would you stop it.
Let’s see which process works best for you:
Potential Reasons Why is Excel Changing My Numbers
In the next section, you will find the possible reasons along with their solutions for why Excel keeps changing the numbers. Try to understand each reason and then apply it to your dataset.
Reason 1: Auto-Insert Decimal Point Option is Enabled
Built-in features of Excel do what they are supposed to do, however, sometimes it might be possible that due to some features you are facing troubles in processing other functions. If the Auto-Insert decimal point option is activated, it could be a reason that the numbers into decimals are kept on changing by themselves. Let’s see how you can check if this option is activated or not:
- Suppose you need to make a list of students’ marks.
- Add the numbers of each student under the Marks column.
- Here you can see in the C5 cell that 62 marks in a subject of John Walter are added.
- Now, press ENTER key.
- You will instantly notice the number in cell C5 turns into 0.62.
- Instead of 0.62, you need this value to be 62.
- Now, put other students’ marks as well in the sheet.
Let’s have a look at how to stop Excel from changing numbers:
Solution:
Below are some easy-to-follow steps:
- Open the File tab.
- Click on the Options from the menu.
- The Excel Options dialog box will pop up.
- Click on the Advanced tab.
- From there, you will find Editing options. Uncheck the box of Automatically insert a decimal point.
- Press OK.
- After pressing OK, the worksheet will open up, and choose the C5 cell to edit it.
- Enter 62 once again in the cell.
- Press ENTER.
- You will see the number remains as it is and does not change.
Now, enter all the other entries in the sheet. You will not face this issue again.
Reason 2: Increase Decimal Command is Activated
When your dataset contains cash, bills, and ledgers type of values, Excel uses Currency format for such kind of data. It could be a reason that your numbers are changing because the increase decimal command is not deactivated and the dataset looks like this:
Solution:
With the help of the Format Cells dialog box, you can sort out this issue. Let’s see how you can do it:
- Select the cell range of C5:C14.
- Open the Home tab.
- Choose the Decrease Decimal icon given on the Number menu.
- Choose the cell range.
- Open the Home tab and click on the arrowhead given on the right side of the Number group.
- The Format Cells dialog box will open up.
- You will see the Currency format given under the Category menu is checked already because it is applied to the range at first.
- Change the Decimal places to 0.
- Press OK.
Reason 3: A Long Number is Typed
More often Excel numbers are rounded for better understanding. Simple fractional changes impact directly the project. In the image below, you can see the Revenue is shown in the form of exponential. Understanding data in this form for other people is not easy that’s why we need Excel to display the full number in cells D6 and D7.
Solution:
Let’s see how you can stop Excel from rounding up decimals.
- Select the cell range D5:D14.
- Open the Home tab.
- Choose the Number Format menu from the Number group.
- Click on the Number format.
- Move the cursor to the line between columns D and E.
- Double-click with the mouse.
- You will notice all the numbers are in full format rather than rounding.
Summary:
In this post, you have learned why is Excel changing my numbers and all the possible reasons why numbers change in Excel. Besides potential reasons, you also got the solutions to each reason. Apply each solution carefully and before that, you need to find out what is the reason behind this issue.
