Notation for Thousands and Millions

Jim wonders how he can get Excel to automatically display numbers using "k" for thousands and "m" for millions. As an example, if a cell contains the value $470,000 he would like it displayed as $470k; if it contains the value $1,107,432 he would like it displayed as $1.1m.

One obvious method is to create a formula that will display the information as desired. The following formula will take into account the magnitude of the number in cell B2 and then provide a formatted text string appropriate to that magnitude:

=IF(B2 < 1000,B2,IF(B2 < 1000000,
"$" & ROUND(B2/1000,1) & "k",
"$" & ROUND(B2/1000000,1) & "m"))

Remember that this is a single formula and should be entered entirely on one line. The drawback with such an approach, of course, is that the formula takes up space within your worksheet. To get around this you could, instead, create a custom format that will simply affect the display of the number in the cell.

To create a custom format if you are using a version of Excel prior to Excel 2007, choose Cells from the Format menu, display the Number tab, and click Custom at the left side of the dialog box. If you are using Excel 2007 then you should display the Home tab of the ribbon and click the small icon at the lower-right corner of the Number group. Again click Custom at the left side of the dialog box.

Here's the custom format you should actually use:

[>1000000]$#.0,,"m";[>1000]$#,"k";$#,##0

This format will display both millions and thousands using the desired notation. If the number is below a thousand then it will be displayed without any special notation. As appropriate, values are rounded to one decimal place.