Add Dollar Sign in Excel

In this lesson, I’ll who you how to add the currency symbol (dollar sign to be exact) inside a worksheet. There are a few ways, you can do it, and I will show you the most popular ones.

Type the $ symbol

The quickest and simplest way is to type the dollar sign directly into a cell, just before the number.

If a number is already inside a cell, without the sign, you can add the symbol in two ways:

  • Double-click the cell with a number, so the cursor will be in front of the cell, and then place $.
  • Click the cell, press F2, and move the cursor in front of the number. Then place $.

If you place the dollar sign and then remove value inside this cell, the currency formatting will be present there. Now, you can place a number without the sign, and the currency formatting will be applied automatically.

Format painter

The format painter will copy any formatting of a cell, and paste it into a different cell. If the only formatting you have inside the cell is the currency formatting, you can click it, and then click another cell or cells without this formatting.

Click a cell with currency formatting and navigate to Home >> Clipboard >> Format painter.

Apply the formatting to numbers.

The standard formatting of cells B5 and B6 was changed to the dollar formatting.

Ribbon

The next place you can add the dollar sign to a number is the Ribbon. Just select numbers and navigate to Home >> Number.

There is a small dollar button.

Click it and your number will change to dollar values.

Additionally, Excel added two decimal places. If you want to change them you can click Decrease Decimal in Home >> Number.

Format cells

The next method for changing numbers to dollars is to use the Format cell feature.

To use it, select cells you want to convert to dollars and right-click these values. Choose Format Cells.

Inside the new window, click Currency.

Here, you can set the formatting to dollars, and specify how many decimal places the numbers should have. In the Sample are you have a live preview of how the first number is going to look like after you apply the changes.

Add sign automatically

You don’t have to place numbers first and then apply the formatting. You can do the opposite. If you do so, you can check the formatting quickly. Just clicking a cell and see the type of formatting in Home >> Numbers.

Tomasz Decker is an Excel specialist, skilled in data analysis and financial modeling.