In the example, the formula in cell D7 is This tells Excel to take the value in B7 (PI) and round it to the number of digits in cell C7 (3) with a result of 3.142 Notice that even though the number in the 4th position to the right of the decimal is 1, it is still rounded up to 2. In the table, the ROUNDUP function is used to round the same number (pi, created with the PI function) to a decreasing number of digits, starting at 4 and moving down past zero to -1. Note that positive numbers round to the right of the decimal point, while digits less than or equal to zero round to the left. You can see that ROUNDUP is a rather heavy-handed function, so use with care. You can use the CEILING function to round a number up to a given multiple. If you want to discard the decimal portion of a number, you can use the TRUNC function.
Dave Bruns
Hi - I’m Dave Bruns, and I run Exceljet with my wife, Lisa. Our goal is to help you work faster in Excel. We create short videos, and clear examples of formulas, functions, pivot tables, conditional formatting, and charts.
