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units of measure in MS

Anonymous
2022-02-24T17:58:52+00:00

I'm not sure if we want to call this a question or a complaint, but I find it asinine that I have to "fake change" my region to change my units of measure. MS tries to be too smart. I should be able to choose my units of measure between inches and metric based on what I want, not based on where I live. It's getting tedious to keep pretending I'm in Europe every time I need to use CM.

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  1. HansV 462.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2022-02-24T19:15:07+00:00

    If you are using the desktop Office applications for Windows, they will follow the system settings by default. You can specify metric vs US (imperial) independently of your region:

    But you can also specify the units in some of the Office applications:

    Word: File > Options > Advanced, section Display: 'Show measurements in units of' drop-down.

    Excel: File > Options > Advanced, section Display: 'Ruler units' drop-down.

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  2. Stefan Blom 339.3K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2022-02-25T08:56:25+00:00

    As Hans wrote, you can change the unit of measurement at least in some of the Office applications, regardless of regional settings.

    Also, remember that you can type in a value using your preferred unit of measurement and the program will convert it for you. For example, in Word's Paragraph dialog box, you can always enter a value for indentation in inches, even if the default is centimeters. The next time you visit the dialog box, Word has converted the value to the selected default. (Some programs, such as Excel, perform the conversion when you tab in the dialog box to move the insertion point to the next option.)

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