When you type a seven-or-ten-digit phone number into an Excel cell that uses the phone number format, Excel will automatically change the way the number looks so that it appears as a phone number.

Similarly, it's easy to forget to type the currency symbol when you're focusing on the numbers that follow, so using Excel's built-in number format converter is the way forward.

How to Change to Accounting Format in Excel. The accounting format in Microsoft Excel 2010 is very similar to the currency format---both display the currency symbol next to every number.

When you use Excel's Chart Wizard to create a chart, by default the chart takes on the number formats used in the worksheet that includes the charted data. Mary Ann Richardson shows you a way to ...