Change decimals from commas to dots in Excel

Question

cjbruce2015 Author

Level 1

6 points

Change decimals from commas to dots in Excel

For some reason, my version of Excel on my MacBook Air has changed all of the decimals in my numbers to commas - ie it has changed my formatting from North American to European. I can work with that, but I'd much rather use the North American.

All of the answers to how to do this that I can find on the Web and on this Forum tell me to go to headings on my Excel file that do not exist. For example, on this Forum I was told to go to Advanced under File. There is no Advanced on my Excel. Is there a simple way to switch to North American style?

MacBook Air 11″, macOS 10.12

Posted on Apr 11, 2023 05:18 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Badunit

Level 7

29,898 points

Apr 11, 2023 05:48 PM in response to cjbruce2015

This collection of forums is for Apple products and this particular forum is for Apple's Numbers app. Excel is a Microsoft product and Microsoft hosts its own help/forums for its products.

From what I read, Excel for Mac gets its decimal separator setting from System Preferences. The only way to change the separator in Excel is to change it for your entire system.

System Preferences->Language & Region->Advanced

Reply

Answer 2

cjbruce2015 Author

Level 1

6 points

Apr 11, 2023 08:47 PM in response to Badunit

Badunit's answer got me on the right track. However, for anyone trying to solve my problem, you should know (1) that System preferences on a MacBook Air is called System Settings. (2) When you open System Settings, choose General, then Language & Region. (3) At that point, you are not offered an option called Advanced (as Badunit said). Instead, to choose American/Canadian/British decimalization, choose the option, (in Language & Region), called Number Format. (4)Three options are offered there. It should be obvious which one you should choose. That worked for me.

Reply