How to Align Decimals in Excel on a Mac
Excel for Macintosh uses a custom formatting field to align decimals in a column of numbers. This custom format adds spaces in front of the number and extra zeros afterwards to force numbers to line up on their decimal points. This format also rounds decimals to a fixed precision, meaning that it shows a fixed number of decimals after the decimal point.
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Instructions
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Determine the number of digits you wish to display after the decimal point. For example, currency is almost always displayed to two significant digits, while percentages and other numeric types may display more or fewer decimals, depending on their uses.
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Select the cells that you wish to format. If you wish to select an entire column, click on the column header.
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Choose "Cells..." from the "Format" menu, then click on the "Custom" category in the left-hand side of the window.
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Type a custom format in the text box as follows: type a "0" where you want a zero to appear if there is no number in that tens place. Type a "#" to leave this blank. End the format with a "?" to use additional zeroes and spaces to align the decimals. For example, for the decimal 0.543, the following formats display the following results:
"#.0?" displays ".54"
"0.0?" displays "0.54"
"0.00?" displays "0.543"
The preview box in the format window displays the first cell you selected in the custom format as you type it, allowing you to tinker with the custom formatting symbols until you get the desired result.
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