How to Remove Leading or Trailing Zeros in Excel

This updated guide examines How to Remove Leading or Trailing Zeros in Excel and organizes the essential facts, background, and practical takeaways in clear American English.

Method 1

Removing Leading Zeros

1. Highlight the cells with leading zeros. If you're working with numbers in a column, you can highlight the whole column by clicking the column letter.
2. Right-click the highlighted cells. If your computer doesn't have a right mouse button, pressCtrlas you click with the left. A menu will appear.
3. ClickFormat Cells. The Format Cells dialog will appear.
4. SelectNumberfrom the left column.
5. Type a '0' (zero) into the 'Decimal Places' box.
6. ClickOK. It's at the bottom-right corner of the screen. This brings you back to your spreadsheet, where you should no longer see zeros before your numbers.
   • If you still see leading zeros, double-click the cells, then press?Enteror?Return.

Method 2

Removing Trailing Zeros

1. Highlight the cells with trailing zeros. If you're working with numbers in a column, you can highlight the whole column by clicking the column letter.
2. Right-click the highlighted cells. If your computer doesn't have a right mouse button, pressCtrlas you click with the left. A menu will appear.
3. ClickFormat Cells. The Format Cells dialog will appear.
4. SelectCustomfrom the left column.
5. Type a code into the box under 'Type. ' If any text is in the box, delete it now. Then, type0.###into the box.
6. ClickOK. You will no longer see extraneous zeros at the ends of your numbers.