Instant Fraction Formatting 10

[jproj]

For thoss of you who (like me) hate entering a fraction and having it displayed as a decimal (or a date for that matter, if you forget the =3/8 )... I came across the following in my VBA book:

You can enter the following directly into a cell and have Excel automaticlly recognize it as a fraction.

Example: To get the fraction "3/8" to enter to a cell, type the following (minus the quotes):

"0 3/8" (zero followed by a space and the fraction)

Likewise...

typing "1 10/8" returns the (mixed) fraction "2 1/4"

Hope this proves useful to someone!

jproj

 

[oldrunner]

That's neat. Not only that, but if you enter a list of numbers and fractions and then do a sum, the sum is in fractions. If you multiply a fraction by a fraction, is also results in a fraction answer. Excel apparently will give a fractional answer as close as possible.

Now I know all you people knew this, but I've been working with Excel and Lotus (as well as Visacalc)for a long time and never knew this.

 

[FM1]

That really is neat!

Thanks jproj.

 

[paolo78]

Thanks Guy!
Very useful!

 

[jabaldauf]

You can further tune the display of fractions. If you want measurements to the nearest 1/16 inch, use the format code # ??/16. You can create a custom format code with any denominator you require. To restrict to a maximum number of digits in the denominator, use # ??/?? (e.g. for two digits).

What excel is missing is a rounding error indicator. My HP calculator will display fractions with an indication of whether the displayed value is higher or lower than the actual value.
-JimB