In Excel, you can format numbers in cells for things like currency, percentages, decimals, dates, phone numbers, or social security numbers.

In your Excel data source that you'll use for a mailing list in a Word mail merge, make sure you format columns of numeric data correctly. Format a column with numbers, for example, to match a specific category such as currency. If you choose percentage as a category, be aware that the percentage format will multiply the cell value by 100.

Format numbers as dates, currency, or even fractions to cells in a worksheet. For example, if you’re working on your quarterly budget, the Currency number format shows your numbers as money.

Stop Excel from entering dates automatically by changing numbers to dates. You can format cells as text before you enter numbers. Or if you have just a few numbers to work with, enter a space before the number, or an apostrophe.

For example, if you have a table in columns A and B, and you enter data in column C, Excel will automatically format column C as part of your table. Fill formulas in tables to create calculated columns : ... If you want to set how numbers and dates appear, you do that on the Home tab in the Number group. It isn’t part of automatic formatting.

How to use conditional formatting in Excel to visually explore, analyze, and identify patterns and trends.

Stop Excel from entering dates automatically by changing numbers to dates. You can format cells as text before you enter numbers. Or if you have just a few numbers to work with, enter a space before the number, or an apostrophe.

You can use the built-in number formats in Excel as is, or you can create your own custom number formats to change the appearance of numbers, dates, and times.

You can quickly create a list of dates, in sequential order, by using the Fill Handle or the Fill command.

The DATEVALUE function converts a date that is stored as text to a serial number that Excel recognizes as a date. The DATEVALUE function is helpful in cases where a worksheet contains dates in a text format that you want to filter, sort, or format as dates, or use in date calculations.