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Excel - Display Numbers in Thousands or Millions Easily - Episode 555

663 views · Published 20 July 2009 · 2:16 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: MrExcel.com · 2009 · Education

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Microsoft Excel Tutorial: Display Numbers in Thousands or Millions Easily.

Welcome back to the MrExcel netcast! In this video, I'll be sharing one of my favorite formatting tricks for displaying large numbers in a more concise way. Have you ever had numbers in the thousands that take up a lot of space and you'd rather just show the numbers and thousands? Well, I've got a solution for you.

First, we'll go to the number tab in the format cells option and select the thousands separator with zero decimal places. This will add a comma to our numbers, but we can take it a step further. In the custom type, we'll add a comma and the letter "K" at the end of the number format. This will divide the number by a thousand and add the "K" as an abbreviation for thousands. Now, instead of seeing 100,000,289, we'll see 103K. It's a simple trick, but it can make a big difference in the appearance of your data.

But what about charts? I used to use the same trick for my charts, but I've found a better way. In the scale tab, there's a setting called display units. Here, we can change the units to thousands, millions, billions, or trillions. This is a better option because it not only displays the numbers in a more concise way, but it also adds a label to the axis indicating the unit of measurement. So instead of seeing 150,000,000, we'll see 150 million. It's a small change, but it can make a big impact on the readability of your charts.

So there you have it, two different ways to format numbers in the thousands. You can use the custom number format with a comma and "K" at the end, or you can use the scaling option in charts to display the numbers in a more concise way. Thank you for watching this netcast, and be sure to tune in next time for more tips and tricks from MrExcel. Don't forget to like and subscribe for more helpful Excel content. See you next time!

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Table of Contents:
(00:00) Introduction by Bill Jelen
(00:15) Complex custom number format
(00:25) Using format cells and custom type
(00:35) Using the comma and "K" to display thousands
(01:00) Using the same trick for charts
(01:12) A better way to format charts using display units
(01:34) Another way to format numbers in thousands
(01:57) Clicking Like really helps the algorithm

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This video answers these common search terms:
Applying the same trick for formatting chart axes
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Scaling options for displaying numbers in hundreds, thousands, millions, billions, or trillions
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Using format cells to show thousands separator and zero decimal places
Using quotes for displaying M abbreviation in chart

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Need to convert a report or a chart to display in thousands or millions? Episode 555 shows two different methods to achieve this result.

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