Learn About Data Formats

Numbers lets you control two kinds of data formatting. There’s the data type: an entry of 3:02 could be a time, or a duration of 3 hours and 2 minutes, but formatting it specifically as a time or duration keeps things clear. And then there’s the data’s appearance: you type 2, but it could be displayed as 2.0 or 200%; or a date could show as December 10, 2001 or 12/10/01 or the European 10 December 2001.

In this chapter, I describe the standard data formats that Numbers recognizes and then show you how to Create a Custom Data Format for numbers and text, including how to use Alternative Formats with Rules to change a cell’s formatting based on the data in it.

Review Standard Data Formats

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