How to Use the Formats Customizer in Excel

The Formats Customizer allows you to customize the look of your formats. It is available in a variety of languages and works on all Windows versions.

Number formatting in Excel is a powerful tool that can help you create beautiful and professional-looking numbers. There are many built-in formats, but if you can't find the one you need, you can use a custom number format to control the look of your numbers.

Custom number formats contain a combination of codes that can be used for both the digits and text within a number. To get the best result, select a format code that matches the number of digits you want to display.

For example, if you want to display 5 as $5.00, enter the following code in the Custom Formats window: $#.## - displays 5.

A custom number format can also include optional digits in the form of pound signs (#) or question marks (?) to align digits and maintain visual alignment. To create a custom number format that includes a question mark, type a space character after or before the question mark depending on whether you want the number to follow or precede the question mark.

Alternatively, you can add a period to the format code to indicate that the number contains a decimal point. Using period in this way will force the display of the decimal point.

If you change the text of a custom number format, the changes will be saved in the workbook where the format was created. However, if you move the format to another workbook, the changes are not saved there. In this case, you can revert the changes to the original settings by double-clicking the format in the Custom Formats list and clicking Restore Default from the context menu.