Cell Formatting

Cell formats allow you to change the way cell data appears in the spreadsheet. It is important to keep in mind that it only alters the way the data is presented, and does not change the value of the data.

The formatting options allows for monetary units, scientific options, dates, times, fractions,and more. Positive and negative values can have different colors and formats for aiding in keeping track of values. There are also a large variety of date and time formats for virtually any time and date format one can think of.

To change the formatting style for a cell or a range of cells, you only need to select the range of cells (see the section called Editing cells using the selection in Chapter 1) where you want to apply/change the format and then select from the Format/Cells/Numbers menu (or from the context sensitive popup menu bound to the right mouse button) the appropriate format.

The quickest way to access the cell format dialog is to use its keyboard shortcut, Ctrl-1. This is equivalent to selecting the cell format item from the menus.

Gnumeric provides a wide range of predetermined formatting styles. These formatting styles are shown by category in the Cell/Style dialog box. Just choose one of the display formats and accept the changes to change the display format for your cells.

If none of the predetermined formatting styles fits your needs, you can define your own number formatting style by using a custom formatting expression: the custom formatting expressions give you more flexibility in number display.