Q. In Excel, what’s the difference between
rounding and truncating ?
A. When
rounding a number, Excel changes the number displayed in a
cell but stores the complete number you entered. So if you
entered 345.679 in a Currency -formatted
cell, Excel would display $345.68 (rounding up the last digit
from 7 to 8). But it would store the full value: 345.679 . In
fact, you’ll always see that full value in the Formula
bar at the top of the screen. The comma and the 2
(,2) after the number indicates the number of decimal places
to display.
To round down, the formula is
=ROUNDDOWN(num,digits) . When Excel truncates, it
chops off part of the entered number and performs no rounding
at all. So if you input 345.679 and format the number for no
decimal points, it cuts off the digits after the decimal
point. Again, the full stored number appears in the
Formula bar.
There are many subtleties in
using rounding and truncating, so to learn more go to Excel
Help . |