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How to change the decimal separator in Microsoft Excel

November 1, 2014 by Admin 15 Comments

Microsoft Excel 2013 and 2010 by default uses the system defined decimal separator. In Windows 8 and Windows 7 this option is defined under the Regional and Language Settings available under Control Panel.

Step 1: Right click on the bottom end corner of Window 8 system and select Control Panel from the menu list (In Windows 7, navigate to Control Panel).

Windows 8 Control Panel

Step 2: In Adjust your computer’s settings screen, click Clock, Language and Region option.

Windows 8, Clock Language and Region

Step 3: In Clock, Language and Region screen, click Change date, time or number formats under Region section.

Change date, time or number formats on Windows 8

Step 4: Click the Additional settings button in the Region window.

Additional Settings on Windows 8

Step 5: In Customise Format window, enter the new separator for Decimal Symbol. Then click Apply and Ok button to save the changes.

Customize Decimal Symbol in Windows

Microsoft Excel also provides users can customize the separator used for Decimals and Thousands using Excel Options. Listed below are the steps to change decimal separator in Excel 2013 and Excel 2010

Step 1: Click File menu and select Options from the menu list.

Step 2: In the Options screen, click the Advanced tab and navigate to Editing section.

Decimal Separator Excel 2013 and Excel 2010

Step 3: Under Editing section, un mark the check box with caption as “User system separators”.

Step 4: Now enter your new decimal separator under Decimal separator field. For this demo we are colon (:) as the decimal separator.

Step 5: Click OK to confirm and save the changes.

Use System Separators - Excel 2013 and Excel 2010 

Also See: How to change decimal separator on Mac OS X Lion

Filed Under: Excel, Excel 2010, Excel 2013, MS Office Tagged With: Change, Decimal Separators, Excel, Number Format, Override, Regional and Language, System

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. slantendicular says

    July 26, 2010 at 5:48 am

    Thank you; this was useful when looking at my cell phone bill in more depth. Otherwise it just didn’t process the times correctly.

    Reply
  2. Benny says

    February 11, 2011 at 7:08 pm

    Thanks! Solved my excelproblem

    Reply
  3. Niko says

    August 4, 2011 at 12:11 pm

    Thanks! Very useful tip as I found the same option also in Excel 2007.

    Reply
  4. jipr311 says

    January 21, 2012 at 5:44 am

    great!!!

    tnx a LOT!

    Reply
  5. Diana says

    March 2, 2012 at 12:26 am

    Thank you sooo much!!! I spent about 2 hours trying to solve this problem

    Reply
  6. Rahul Mathur says

    May 20, 2012 at 10:36 pm

    Your suggestion has helped me tremendously. I bought laptop from Dubai. The number format was giving comma separator after every 2 digits. Now I have been able to change it to USA format. Many Thanks

    Reply
  7. Mohamed says

    October 3, 2013 at 8:33 pm

    It worked, but after closing the Excel and opening it again

    Reply
  8. Robert says

    September 9, 2014 at 3:06 pm

    Works fine, but if I sent the file to somebody else who has other settings, it changes again. How can I put a format in in such a way it is not changed based on the region of any user when shared?

    Reply
    • Ravi Shankar says

      September 9, 2014 at 3:22 pm

      Probably you can try with a macro. Check this out – http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21252436/how-to-change-decimal-separator-with-macro

      Reply
  9. Robert says

    September 9, 2014 at 4:19 pm

    Nice! Thanks.

    Reply
  10. Stefanie says

    April 22, 2015 at 4:46 pm

    Thank you so much. Ever since I got my new laptop some existing excel spreadsheets showed commas and point separators and the formulas did not work with a mix of both. This solved my problem.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Posts recap–Excel 2010 says:
    June 4, 2011 at 10:15 pm

    […] How to change the decimal separator in Excel 2010 […]

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  2. How to customize decimal separators in Excel 2013 says:
    July 2, 2013 at 12:38 pm

    […] the separator used for Decimals and Thousands using Excel Options. This is similar to changing decimal separator option available as part of Excel […]

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    October 6, 2013 at 6:14 pm

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