Google Sheets Custom Number Format

Introduction

Google Sheets custom number format rules are used to specify special formatting rules for numbers.

These custom rules control how numbers are displayed in your Sheet, without changing the number itself. They’re a visual layer added on top of the number. It’s a powerful technique to use because you can combine visual effects without altering your data.

Sheets already has many built-in formats (e.g. accounting, scientific, currency etc.) but you may want to go beyond and create a unique format for your situation.

Google Sheets Custom Number Format Usage

Access custom number formats through the menu:

Format > Number > More Formats > Custom number format

The custom number format editor window looks like this:

You type your rule in the top box and hit “Apply” to apply it to the cell or range you highlighted.

Under the input box you’ll see a preview of what the rule will do. It gives you a useful and pretty accurate indication of what your numbers will look like with this rule applied.

Previous rules are shown under the preview pane. You can click to restore and reuse any of these.

Google Sheets Custom Number Format Structure

You have four “rules” to play with, which are entered in the following order and separated by a semi-colon:

1. Format for positive numbers
2. Format for negative numbers
3. Format for zeros
4. Format for text

1. Format for positive numbers

#,##0.00 ; [red](#,##0.00) ; 0.00 ; “some text “@

The first rule, which comes before the first semi-colon (;), tells Google Sheets how to display positive numbers.

2. Format for negative numbers

#,##0.00 ; [red](#,##0.00) ; 0.00 ; “some text “@

The second rule, which comes between the first and second semi-colons, tells Google Sheets how to display negative numbers.

3. Format for zeros

#,##0.00 ; [red](#,##0.00) ; 0.00 ; “some text “@

The third rule, which comes between the second and third semi-colons, tells Google Sheets how to display zero values.

Rule	Before	After
0;0;"Zero"	0	Zero

4. Format for text

#,##0.00 ; [red](#,##0.00) ; 0.00 ; “some text “@

The fourth rule, which comes after the third semi-colon, tells Google Sheets how to display text values.

Do You Have To Use All Four Rules?

No, you don’t have to specify them all everytime.

If you only specify one rule then it’s applied to all values.

If you specify a positive and negative rule only, any zero value takes on the positive value format.

Here are some examples of single- and multi-rule formats:

Rule	Positive	Negative	Zero	Text
0	1	-1	0	text
0;(0)	1	(1)	0	text
[red]0	1	-1	0	text
0;[red]-0	1	-1	0	text
0;[red]-0;[blue]0;[green]@	1	-1	0	text

Google Sheets Custom Number Format Rules

Zero Digit Rule (0)

Zero (0) is used to force the display of a digit or zero, when the number has fewer digits than shown in the format rule. Use the zero digit rule (0) to force numbers to be a certain length and show leading zero(s).

For example:

Rule	Before	After
0.00	1.5	1.50
00000	721	00721

Pound Sign Rule (#)

The pound sign (#) is a placeholder for optional digits. If your value has fewer digits than # symbols in the format rule, the extra # won’t display anything.

Rule	Before	After
####	15	15
####	1589	1589
#.##	1.5	1.5

Thousands Separator (,)

The comma (,) is used to add thousand separators to your format rule. The rule #,##0 will work for thousands and millions numbers.

Rule	Before	After
#,##0	1495	1,495
#,##0.00	1234567.89	1,234,567.89

Period (.)

The period (.) is used to show a decimal point. When you include the period in your format rule, the decimal point will always show, regardless of whether there are any values after the decimal.

Rule	Before	After
0.	10	10.
0.	10.1	10.
0.00	10	10.00

Thousands (k or K) or Millions (m or M)

If you add thousand separators but don’t specify a format after the comma (e.g. 0,) then the hundreds will be chopped off the number. Combine this with a “k” or “K” to indicate the thousands and you have a nice way to showcase abbreviated numbers. To achieve this with millions, you need to specify two commas.

Rule	Before	After
0.0,	2500	2.5
0,"k"	2500	3k
0.0,"k"	2500	2.5k
0.0,,"M"	1234567	1.2M

Negative Number With Brackets ( )

Brackets can be added to the negative number rule to change the format from -100 to (100), which is often seen in accounting and financial scenarios.

Rule	Before	After
0;(0)	-100	(100)

Asterisk (*)

The asterisk (*) is used to repeat digits in your format rule. The character that follows after the asterisk is repeated to fill the width of the cell.

In the following example, the dash is repeated to fill the width of the cell in Google Sheets:

Rule	Before	After
*-0	100	——————100

Question Mark (?)

The question mark (?) is used to align values correctly by adding necessary space, even when the number of digits don’t match.

See this example:

Underscore (_)

The underscore (_) also adds space to your number formats.

In this case, the character that follows the underscore determines the size of the space to add (but is not shown). So this rule allows you to add precise amounts of space.

For example #,##0.00_);(#,##0.00) adds a space after the positive sign that is the width of one bracket, so that the decimal point lines up with the negative numbers with brackets.

You can see this clearly in the following image, where the first line does NOT have the spacing but the second line does. The red highlight has been added to show the result of the spacing:

Escape Character (\)

Suppose you want to actually show a pound sign in your format. If you simply add it into your format rule, then Sheets will interpret it as a placeholder for optional digits (see above).

To actually show the pound sign, precede it with a backslash (\) to ensure it shows.

This applies to any of the other special characters too.

Rule	Before	After
#0	10	10
\#0	10	#10

At (@)

The At symbol (@) is used as a placeholder for text, which means don’t change the text entered.

Rule	Before	After
0;0;0;"Special text value!"	Some text	Special text value!
0;0;0;@	Some text	Some text

Fraction (/)

The forward slash (/) is used to denote fractions.

For example, the rule # ?/? will show numbers as fractions:

Rule	Before	After
# ?/?	2.3333333333	2 1/3

Percent (%)

The percent sign (%) is used to format values as %. As with the other rules, you first specify the digits and then use the % sign to change to a percent e.g. 0.00%

Rule	Before	After
0.00%	0.2829	28.29%

Exponent (E)

For very large (or very small) numbers, use the exponent format rule to show them more compactly.

The rule is: number * E+n, in which E (the exponent) multiplies the preceding number by 10 to the nth power.

Let’s see an example:

Rule	Before	After
0.00E+00	23976986	2.40E+07

Google Sheets Custom Number Format Conditional Rules

Adding conditions inside of square brackets replaces the default positive, negative and zero rules with conditional expressions.

For example:

Rule	Before	After
[<100]"Small" ; [>500]"Large" ; "Medium"	50	Small
[<100]"Small" ; [>500]"Large" ; "Medium"	300	Medium
[<100]"Small" ; [>500]"Large" ; "Medium"	800	Large

Conditional Rules

• Conditions can only be specified in the first two rules
• The third rule is used as the format for everything else that doesn’t satisfy the first two conditions
• The fourth rule is always used for text, so cannot be used for conditional formatting

Meta instructions for conditional rules from the Google Sheets API documentation.

Colors In Google Sheets Custom Number Formats

Add colors to your rules with square brackets [ ].

There are 8 named colors you can use:
[black], [white], [red], [green], [blue], [yellow], [magenta], [cyan]

To get more colors, use the 2-digit color codes written:
[Color1], [Color2], [Color3], ..., [Color56]

For full rundown of the color palette for these 56 colors, click here.

Color Examples

Rule	Before	After
0;[red](0)	-100	(100)

Here’s another example of using Google Sheets custom number format rules with colors: How To Make a Table in Google Sheets, and Make It Look Great

where the rule is:

Meta instructions for color rules from the Google Sheets API documentation.

Google Sheets Custom Number Format Examples

Telephone

Turn any 11 digit number into a formatted telephone number with the zero digit rule and dashes:

Rule	Before	After
0 000-000-0000	18004567891	1 800-456-7891

Plural

Use conditional rules to pluralize words. Remember, these are still numbers under the hood so you can still do arithmetic with them. The formatting portion (“day” or “days”) is just added as a layer on top.

Rule	Before	After
[=1]0" day"; 0" days"	1	1 day
[=1]0" day"; 0" days"	2	2 days
[=1]0" day"; 0" days"	100	100 days

Conditional

Use conditionals to classify numbers directly:

Rule	Before	After
[<250]"Small"* 0 ; [>750]"Large"* 0 ; "Medium"* 0	70	Small 70
[<250]"Small"* 0 ; [>750]"Large"* 0 ; "Medium"* 0	656	Medium 656
[<250]"Small"* 0 ; [>750]"Large"* 0 ; "Medium"* 0	923	Large 923

Note: these are still numbers under the hood, so you can do arithmetic with them. Moreso, the “Small”, “Medium” and “Large” only exist in the format layer and cannot be accessed in formulas. For example, you can’t use a COUNTIF to count all the values with “Large”. To do that, you need to actually change the value so the word “Large” is in the cell, or add a helper column.

The “* ” part of the rule adds space between the word and the number so that it fills out the full width of the cell.

Conditional + Color

Add color scales to the conditional example:

Rule	Before	After
[color44][<250]"Small"* 0;[color46][>750]"Large"* 0;[color45]"Medium"* 0	70	Small 70
[color44][<250]"Small"* 0;[color46][>750]"Large"* 0;[color45]"Medium"* 0	656	Medium 656
[color44][<250]"Small"* 0;[color46][>750]"Large"* 0;[color45]"Medium"* 0	923	Large 923

Temperature Example

Combine conditionals with emojis to turn numbers into a emoji-scale, like this temperature example:

Rule	Before	After
[>90]🔥🔥🔥;[>50]🙂;❄️;"No data"	37	❄️
[>90]🔥🔥🔥;[>50]🙂;❄️;"No data"	75	🙂
[>90]🔥🔥🔥;[>50]🙂;❄️;"No data"	110	🔥🔥🔥
[>90]🔥🔥🔥;[>50]🙂;❄️;"No data"	N/a	“No data”

Other Resources

Google documentation on how to format numbers in Sheets.

Custom Number Format Builder for Google Sheets and Excel.

Questions? Comments? Have you used custom number formats? Seen any interesting examples? Leave a comment below.