Too+Many+Decimal+Points

=Too Many Decimal Points=

When doing a mail merge in Word using data from an Excel file any number calculated by a formula often appears with up to 14 decimal points. Even if you display the number in Excel to have only 2 (or whatever #) of decimal points, when doing a mail merge the "Excel formatting" is lost and you get the entire, "pure number".

There is a fairly easy fix/adjustment for this. Create an extra column just for formatting the calculation and use this column in the mail merge. Here are the details.

I insert an extra column to the right of the formula result column. Then I use this technique: =TEXT(your_cellwithtoomanydecimals,"0.00") in that column. For example:

If the formula result column was "M" and I wanted two (max) decimal points: =TEXT(M2,"0.00") < (This formula would be in column "N") If the formula result column was "F" and I wanted zero decimal points: =TEXT(F2,"0") < (This formula would be in column "G")

Then I use my column (with the =Text function) in the Word mail merge document, not the one with the formula.

The reason for the extra "text" column is so that you can have a “SUM” (or similar) formula at the bottom of the column of numbers. You can’t “do math” on cells that have the =text function. It may seem like an extra step but I assure you it's worth it!

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