Display fractions in a Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheet
Updated: March 1, 2007
How-to article
Do you want students to see fractions as numerators over denominators, rather than as decimal points in spreadsheets?
Microsoft Office Excel 2002 can display fractions using numerators and denominators, rather than as decimals. When students need to see real fractions in cells, use the Fraction number format in Excel. This way of formatting numbers is especially useful when you need to add, subtract, multiply, or divide fractions.
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Lesson information
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Instructional level | |
School level | | • | Elementary school (5–11 years) | | • | Middle school (11–15 years) | | • | High school (14–18 years) |
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Curriculum areas | |
Software required | Microsoft Office Excel 2002 |
Objective
Use the Fraction number format in Microsoft Office Excel 2002 to display real fractions in cells. Here's how:
Display fractions in an Excel spreadsheet
1. | Start Excel. |
2. | Before you type fractions in cells, pre-format the group of cells that need to be displayed as fractions. Select the cells where you want to enter fractions, and then on the Format menu, click Cells. |
3. | In the Category list, click Fraction and then, from the list on the right, select the type of fraction that you would like to display. Click OK. |
4. | To type fractions in these preformatted cells, type the numerator, then a slash "/", then the denominator. Do not type spaces. | • | For example, type "1/2" to represent one-half. If you type "4/8" to represent one-half, Office Excel will reduce it to 1/2. Excel reduces all fractions to their lowest terms. | | • | If you need to type a whole number and a fraction in the same cell, type the whole number followed by a space, and then type the fraction (numerator, slash, denominator), for example, "2 4/9". |
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