Modern spreadsheet applications like Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets make some decisions about the data you enter into your cells. These solutions usually involve formatting the data to make it easier to read and save time when formatting. But if Google Sheets displays information in currency when you don’t want it, you might be wondering how to remove the dollar signs that appear in front of that data.
Correctly formatting values in a spreadsheet is an important factor in making the data easier to interpret for your readers. This formatting can have many options, some of which you may need to add or remove at some point in the future. For monetary values, using a standardized format, in particular a format that will always use two decimal places, makes it easier to evaluate a large number of numeric values in a column.
But Google Sheets currency formatting will put a dollar sign in front of your cell values, which might not be what you want. Our guide below will show you how to change this formatting so that you keep the two decimal places but lose the dollar sign.
How to get rid of the dollar sign in a Google spreadsheet
- Open your spreadsheet.
- Select the cells you want to reformat.
- Click the Other Formats button on the toolbar.
- Select the Number option.
Our article continues below with more information on removing the dollar sign in Google Sheets, including images of these steps.
How to Format Currency Without Dollar Sign in Google Sheets (Image Guide)
The steps in this guide are performed in the web browser version of Google Sheets. These steps assume that you are seeing dollar signs in your cells as a result of the formatting setting that is currently being applied. If the dollar sign is actually part of the text contained in the cell, and not as a result of formatting, you may need to manually remove those characters.
Step 1. Go to Google Drive at https://drive.google.com/drive/my-drive and open the spreadsheet file you want to reformat.
Step 2. Select the cells containing the dollar sign formatting you want to remove.
Step 3. Click the “Other formats” button on the gray toolbar above the table.
Step 4: Select the Number option.
Cell values should now be formatted correctly with no dollar signs. If your cells display the wrong number of decimal places, you can proceed to the next section.
Should I remove the dollar sign in Google Sheets?
Using correct formatting for cells in a spreadsheet is important when other people will view your data and use it to make decisions.
One of the most important things you can do with a spreadsheet is to make it easier for your audience to correctly identify information and avoid mistakes that can occur if they misidentify the data or data type.
Google Sheets does a good job of determining the type of data you’ve included in a cell, but it can be error prone, especially if you enter numbers in an unconventional way. If you find that some of your numbers look like they were meant to represent currency or money, but they really are not, then it is probably a good idea to remove the dollar sign from those cells.
How to change the number of decimal places in Google Sheets
They must also store two decimal places, which are generally preferred for monetary values. If not, you can click Decrease Decimal Places or Increase Decimal Places until the cell values are formatted to your liking.
Do you have cells with values that a line is drawn through, and you want to remove that line? Find out how to remove strikethrough in Google Sheets if you no longer want to use it.
More information on how to remove dollar sign in Google Sheets
This article discusses a quick method to change the selection format of cells in a Google spreadsheet. This involves using an option in the toolbar above the table. However, you can also change this setting using the option in the menu at the top of the window. Just select the Format tab at the top of the window, select the Number option, then click Number in the list of formatting options for the selected cells.
Some of the other number formatting options available in Google Sheets include:
- Percent
- Scientific
- Accounting department
- Financial
- Currency
- the date
- Time
- Duration
- Some custom number format options
Depending on the type of data contained in the cells, you may find it more useful to select one of these alternative formatting options for numeric data.
It might be that there may be dollar signs in your cells that are not removed when you change the formatting of the cells. If so, you may need to manually remove these dollar signs. You can do this using the Find and Replace tool in Google Sheets.
To do this, you can first select all cells containing dollar signs that you want to remove. Then click Edit at the top of the window and select the Find and Replace option. You can then enter a dollar sign in the Find field and leave the Replace With field blank. Finally, click the Replace All button to remove any dollar signs that appear in the selected cells.
You can also open the Find and Replace tool in Google Sheets with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + H.
If you are actually trying to enter currency or money but need a different currency symbol, then it is possible that Google Sheets might identify your geographic region as the country that uses the dollar sign. You can change the currency symbol by selecting cells, clicking the Other Formats button on the toolbar, choosing Other Formats at the bottom of the menu, and then choosing Other Currencies. From there, you can find and select the type of currency you want.
