Advanced Spreadsheets – Formatting Numbers

Create and apply custom number formats.

We have a variety of number formats which can be used to format the data in a cell in Calc. But sometimes we might need to format our data in some format which might not be available in Calc by default. In such situations, we can create our own custom number formats.

To create and apply custom number formats, first of all select the cell to which the custom format needs to be applied. After this, click on ‘Format’ from the main menu bar, and from the resulting drop-down, click on ‘Cells’. This will open the ‘Format Cells’ dialog box.

In this dialog box, under the ‘Numbers’ tab, select ‘User-defined’ under ‘Category’. This gives a ‘Format code’ input field where you can define the custom number format. After defining the format, click on ‘OK’. The custom format which has been just defined will get applied to the cell.