9.2. Number Formatting Tab

A swiss army knife of a format. It will attempt to display a value it the 'best' way possible. The choice of format depends on the size of the cell and Gnumeric guess of what 'type' of value is being displayed (number, date, time ...).

Displays numbers with 0-30 digits after the decimal place. Negatives can be displayed normally, within parentheses, or in red color. Optionally a delimiter can be added every third order of magnitude (thousand, million, ...). Both the decimal point and the thousands separator have internationalization support.

Similar to Number, with the addition of a currency symbol. Currently known symbols include $, ¥, £, ¤ and the three letter abbreviations of all major currencies. By default, Gnumeric will use currency symbol and placement (before or after the number) appropriate for your locale.

A specialization of Currency which pays more attention to the alignment of negative numbers. It ensures that a small amount of space is prepended to positive numbers so that they align with negatives.

This category contains various formats for presenting dates. By default, Gnumeric will use date format appropriate for your locale (country and language setting). You can also choose one of many possible date formats shown in the list in the right side of the dialog. The following is an explanation of codes used in these formats:

• d: day of month (one or two digits). Example: 9.

• dd: day of month (two digits). Example: 09.

• ddd: day of week. Example: Wed.

• m: month (number, one or two digits). Example: 3.

• mm: month (number, two digits). Example: 03.

• mmm: month (abbreviated name). Example: Mar.

• mmmm: month (full name). Example: March.

• yyyy: year (four digits). Example: 1967.

• yy: last two digits of year. Example: 67.

This category contains various formats for presenting time of day. You can choose one of many possible time formats shown in the list in the right side of the dialog. The following is an explanation of codes used in these formats:

• h: hours.

• mm: minutes.

• ss: seconds.

Multiplies a value by 100 and appends a percent. Can be used with 0-30 digits after the decimal place.

Approximate the value with a rational number with either a specific denominator or with a maximum number of digits in the denominator.

Formats the value using scientific notation, e.g. 5.334 E 6 for 5,334,000. Allows up to 30 digits after the decimal place. No provision for controlling the exponent are provided at this time.

Treats numeric values as text. This will show a number with as much precision as available and will lose knowledge of whether it represented a date, or time.

	TIP
	If your workbook contains serial numbers, ID numbers or other similar entries, choose Text format for them. If you choose General or Number format, Gnumeric will remove leading zeros, so that 01124 will be shown as 1124.

This category allows you to define your own format. This is only recommended for advanced users as it requires understanding of the codes internally used by Gnumeric for describing formats. To make it easier, this category provides a list of codes for all predefined formats so you can create our own format by modifying one of them rather than starting from scratch.