Changing the default Country or Region in Excel

How to Change the Default Country or Region

Changing the default country/region changes the standard settings for numbers, currencies, time, and date to those most commonly used for that country/region. This setting affects various features in various Microsoft Office programs. Examples of features affected include:

• Calendar in Microsoft Office Outlook.
• Cells formatted with certain date, time, or currency options in Microsoft Office Excel.

Find links to more information on the Microsoft Office features affected by this setting in the See also section.

In Microsoft Windows Vista

1. Click the Start button, and then click Control Panel.
2. Click Clock, Language, and Region, and then click Change the date, time, or number format.

 Note    In Classic view, double-click Regional and Language Options.

3. On the Formats tab, select the country/region that you want to use in the list under Current format.

In Microsoft Windows XP

1. Exit all Microsoft Office programs.
2. Click the Start button, and then click Control Panel.
3. Click Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options, and then click Regional and Language Options.

 Note    In Classic view, double-click Regional and Language Options.

4. On the Regional Options tab, select the country/region that you want to use in the list under Standards and formats

Display numbers as currency

In the Number group, you have some other options. For example, you can change the U.S. dollar sign to another currency format, switch numbers to percents, add commas, and change the decimal location.

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1. Select the cells that contain the numbers that you want to display with a currency symbol.

How to select cells, ranges, rows, or columns

2. On the Home tab, click the Dialog Box Launcher next to Number.  This will display the format cells dialog box.

3. In the Category box, click Currency or Accounting.

4. In the Symbol box, click the currency symbol that you want.

Note: If you want to display a monetary value without a currency symbol, you can click None.

5. In the Decimal places box, enter the number of decimal places that you want to display.
6. In the Negative numbers box, select the display style for negative numbers.

 Note    The Negative numbers box is not available for the Accounting number format.