Technology

How to change periods to commas in Excel easily and quickly

How to change a period to a comma in Excel? What is the quickest and simplest way to do it? Let FPT Shop assist you in the following article.

Administrator

26 December, 2023

170

One of the common issues that Excel users often encounter is using decimal separators. In some countries, a period (.) is used as the decimal separator, while in other countries, a comma (,) is more common. Therefore, if your Excel settings do not match the decimal separator rules in the place where you live and work, data errors are likely to occur. In this guide, FPT Shop will share with you how to change periods to commas in Excel to ensure accuracy and display of data.

Why change periods to commas?

In the default settings of Windows and Excel, the decimal separator in many English-speaking countries such as the US, UK, etc. is a period (.). However, in many European, Latin American, and some Asian countries, a comma (,) is the standard decimal separator.

When you enter data with a decimal separator different from the default settings, Excel may not recognize that data as a number, leading to calculation errors or issues with data formatting. Therefore, to fix this issue, we need to know how to change periods to commas in Excel.

How to change periods to commas in Excel

Follow these steps to change periods to commas in Excel:

Step 1: Open Excel Options

Launch the Microsoft Excel application.

In the main interface, select “File” at the top left corner.

Then select “Options” at the bottom of the menu. This action will open the Excel Options window.

Step 2: Navigate to Advanced options

In the Excel Options window, navigate to the “Advanced” category in the left column.

Find the “Editing options” tab and look for the “Use system separators” option. When this checkbox is selected, it means Excel uses the default decimal separator set in your Windows operating system.

Step 3: Uncheck “Use system separators”

To use a custom decimal separator, uncheck the “Use system separators” option.
After unchecking, two additional fields will appear: “Decimal separator” and “Thousand separator“.

Step 4: Change decimal separator to comma

In the “Decimal separator” option, remove the period (.) and replace it with a comma (,).
Make sure the “Thousand separator” field is empty or contains the symbol you want to use as the thousands separator (e.g., space or period).
Click the “OK” button to save the changes to the decimal separator in Excel.

How to change periods to commas in Windows

In addition to changing periods to commas in Excel, you can also modify Windows settings with the following steps:

Step 1: Access Control Panel

Type “Control Panel” into the search bar of your computer to open this option.

Select “Clock and Region“.

Select “Region“.

Step 2: Modify the Formats

In the “Region” window, navigate to the “Formats” tab.
Click on “Additional settings“.

Step 3: Modify the decimal separator symbol

In the “Numbers” tab of the “Formats” window, find the “Decimal symbol” field.
Replace the period (.) with a comma (,).
Click “OK” to save the changes.

Step 4: Restart your device

To ensure the changes take effect, it is best to restart your desktop or laptop computer.

Summary

After changing the decimal separator settings in both Excel and Windows, it is necessary to check again to ensure that the changes work correctly. To check, enter numbers with commas as the decimal separator in your Excel spreadsheet and perform calculations to verify that Excel recognizes them as numerical values.

Those are the ways to quickly and effectively change periods to commas in Excel. Microsoft Excel is a very useful tool, and setting the display accurately is essential to bring high results to your user experience. We hope this article provides valuable information for Excel users!