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Format cells and numbers

Make a sheet easy to read with bold, colours, fonts and alignment, merge cells, and show numbers as currency, percentages, dates or with thousands separators.

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Formatting changes how cells look, not what they hold. Make headings bold, colour a total row, line figures up on the right, and show 0.25 as 25% or 1234.5 as $1,234.50, while the cell keeps the exact value for your formulas.

Before you start

  • Plans. Formatting is on every plan.
  • Select first. Formatting applies to the cells you have selected. Click a column's letter or a row's number to format all of it, or press ⌘ A (Ctrl A on Windows) for every cell.

Text style, colour and font

Select the cells, then use the toolbar:

Button What it does
Bold, Italic, Underline Turns the style on for the selected cells.
Text colour Opens a colour picker for the text.
Fill colour Opens a colour picker for the cell's background.
Font The font box. Choose Default, Sans, Serif or Mono, or type in Search Google Fonts… to find another.

To turn bold, italic or underline off again, choose Format > Text and click the style. In that menu, a tick shows the styles the cell you are on already has, and clicking switches each one on or off.

Alignment

  • Align left, Align center and Align right in the toolbar, or Format > Alignment.
  • Until you choose, numbers sit on the right of a cell and text on the left.

Merge cells

  1. Select the cells to merge, such as the cells across the top of a table for a title.
  2. Click Merge the selected cells in the toolbar.

The cells become one. Only the top-left cell's content is kept; the others are cleared.

To split them again, select the merged cell and click the same button, now called Unmerge cells.

Number formats

Select the cells, then choose from Format in the toolbar:

Format Shows 1234.5 as Notes
General 1234.5 As typed.
Number (1,234.50) 1,234.50 Two decimal places, with thousands separators.
Integer (1,234) 1,235 Rounded to a whole number, with thousands separators.
Currency ($) $1,234.50 A dollar sign and two decimal places. A negative amount shows as -$1,234.50.
Percent (%) 123450.0% The value times 100, with one decimal place. Use it for values such as 0.25, which shows as 25.0%.
Date (YYYY-MM-DD) (for dates) Shows a date as year, month and day, such as 2026-10-15. A value that is not a date is shown as it is.

Format > Number in the menu bar offers Automatic, Number, Percent and Currency too. Its Percent shows no decimal places, so 0.25 is 25%. A tick shows the format of the cell you are on.

Clear formatting

Select the cells and choose Format > Clear formatting. This turns off bold, italic and underline and sets the number format back to Automatic. Text and fill colours, the font and alignment stay; change them directly.

Format cells by their values

To colour cells automatically, such as overdue dates in red or the highest sales in green, use conditional formatting. See Conditional formatting.

Common questions

I typed 25 and chose Percent, and it shows 2500%. Percent multiplies by 100. Type 0.25 for 25%.

Will my formatting survive an Excel export? Yes. Fonts, fills, colours, alignment and number formats go into an .xlsx file. A .csv file holds values only. See Import and export Excel and CSV files.

Still need help? Contact support at [email protected].