{"id":1019,"date":"2011-08-17T13:12:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-17T05:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vm-officeblogs.cloudapp.net\/2011\/08\/17\/making-sense-of-dollar-signs-in-excel\/"},"modified":"2022-08-16T14:05:34","modified_gmt":"2022-08-16T21:05:34","slug":"making-sense-of-dollar-signs-in-excel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2011\/08\/17\/making-sense-of-dollar-signs-in-excel\/","title":{"rendered":"Making sense of dollar signs in Excel"},"content":{"rendered":"
We’ve noticed some of you searching for help using “$” \u2013 a dollar sign. In Excel, a dollar sign can denote a currency format, but it has another common use: indicating absolute cell\u00a0references in formulas. Let’s consider both uses of the dollar sign in Excel.<\/p>\n
\n\t
\n\t\t
\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
Microsoft Excel<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
Turn data into insights.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/p>\n
Dollar signs\u00a0denoting currency<\/h2>\n
If you want to display numbers as monetary values, you must format those numbers as currency. To do this, you apply either the Currency<\/strong> or Accounting <\/strong>number format to the cells that you want to format. The number formatting options are available on the Home<\/b> tab, in the Number<\/b> group.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
What’s the difference between the two number formats? There are two main differences:<\/p>\n
\n
The Currency format displays the currency symbol adjacent to the number, whereas the Accounting format displays the symbol at the edge of the cell, regardless of the length of the number.<\/li>\n
The Accounting format displays zeros as dashes and negative numbers in parentheses, whereas the Currency format displays zeros as zeros and denotes negative numbers by using a minus sign (-). For more information, see the article Display numbers as currency<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n