Why can't I select columns to increase or decrease decimal places in excel

Question

D4 cell contains the number 123.11.When I select the entire column D and click 'Decrease Decimal',nothing happens.However.if I only slect cell D4,then I can decrease the decimal places.Why is that?

Answer 1

I can not reproduce that, how do you want to determine that?

On my system the file size is small, the memory consumption is low...

Add a fresh sheet, enter a number, say 12.345678 into cells D1 and D4. Select single cells in column D while observing the format in the Number section of the Home tab of the ribbon. They're all General:

Now select the whole column by clicking on the D column header (D1 is the active cell) and adjust the decimal places:

The first thing you might notice while the whole column is still selected is that the format has changed to Number:

Now select any cell in column D, say D1048576 and you'll see it's formatted as a number.

Note that I wasn't being authoritative when I said this might make the sheet resource-hungry; however MS themselves state "Formatting cells on your worksheet can make the right information easy to see at a glance, but formatting cells that aren't being used (especially entire rows and columns) can cause your workbook's file size to grow quickly." ( https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/clean-excess-cell-formatting-on-a-worksheet-e744c248-6925-4e77-9d49-4874f7474738 )

I agree, when I saved this file, reopened it and checked the performance (under the Review tab) it didn't report any problem, nor was the file especially large.

Answer 2

(whole column in this case) gets formatted as a number too, so doing this might make the sheet resource-hungry.

I can not reproduce that, how do you want to determine that?

On my system the file size is small, the memory consumption is low...

Andreas.

Answer 3

You can, but the first cell (i.e. the active cell in your case D1) of the column must also have a number in it.

and as soon as you change the decimal places the whole selection (whole column in this case) gets formatted as a number too, so doing this might make the sheet resource-hungry.

Answer 4

Or format the whole column with e.g. number and 2 decimal places. After that it works too.

Andreas.

Answer 5

You can, but the first cell (i.e. the active cell in your case D1) of the column must also have a number in it.