Microsoft KB Archive/215203

= XL2000: Behavior of Numbers When Using Automatic Percent Entry =

Article ID: 215203

Article Last Modified on 9/25/2003

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Excel 2000 Standard Edition

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This article was previously published under Q215203



SUMMARY
Microsoft Excel 2000 offers a new option to enable or disable automatic percent entry formatting, when you type numbers in cells that are formatted with the Percentage number format.



MORE INFORMATION
By default, when you type numbers in cells that are formatted with the Percentage number format, Microsoft Excel automatically changes these numbers to display as percentages according to the following rule:   Number                            Rule --

All numbers less than 1 and      Multiply by 100 not preceded with a zero         and add % sign

All numbers greater than         Just add % sign or equal to 1 However, if you change the number format to something other than Percentage, or you remove the number format in the affected cells, the actual numbers in the cells may not the same as what you typed.

The following table illustrates this auto percent format feature:   Number        Displayed     Actual typed        result        number --

1          1.00%         0.01     .1          10.00%         0.1    0.1           0.10%         0.001     -1          -1.00%        -0.01    -.1         -10.00%        -0.1   -0.1          -0.10%        -0.001 Although the auto percent feature has been available in Excel for several versions, the option to turn this feature on and off is new. The feature is turned on by default. To control it, use either of the following methods.

Options Dialog Box
To control the auto percent feature using the Options dialog box:
 * 1) On the Tools menu, click Options.
 * 2) On the Edit tab, click to select or clear the Enable automatic percent entry check box. Click OK.

Visual Basic Macro
You can also turn the automatic percent feature on and off using a Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications macro. For example, the following statement when run in a subroutine turns the automatic percent entry feature off. Application.AutoPercentEntry = False NOTE: If you type numbers in cells when the automatic percent entry feature is turned off, Excel multiplies by 100 any number formatted as a Percentage, and adds a percent sign.

If you type numbers in cells when the automatic percent entry feature is turned off, and you change the number format to something other than Percentage, or remove the number format in the affected cells, the numbers remain the same as what you typed.

