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XL2000: Behavior of Numbers When Using Automatic Percent Entry

Article ID: 215203 - View products that this article applies to.

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.

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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:

On the Tools menu, click Options.
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.

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REFERENCES

For more information about automatic percent entry, click Microsoft Excel Help on the Help menu, type Show numbers as percentages in the Office Assistant or the Answer Wizard, and then click Search to view the topic.

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