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Michael Bailey's avatar
Michael Bailey
Copper Contributor
May 21, 2017

Custom number format

I use Excel 2013 and I regularly create spreadsheets in Latin American Spanish. I have the Spanish Language Pack installed but it does nothing with number formats.   In Latin American countries the...
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IngeborgHawighorst's avatar
IngeborgHawighorst
MVP
May 22, 2017

The decimal point and the thousand separator are linked to the regional settings of your computer. If you format a number with the thousand separator, it will appear according to your regional settings. If you send that same workbook to somebody with different regional settings, they will see THEIR respective thousand separator, according to the regional settings of the computer.

 

So, Excel is quite flexible with the formatting. If you want to switch to different regional settings, you can change the Windows settings to use a different language in the Control Panel. In the screenshot below, you can select another language from the dropdown for the display language.

 

 

The key here is that you don't need to use formatting to have numbers displayed according to the custom of a country. Windows and Excel will take care of that, and you can select what settings you want to apply.

 

 

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