alignment with decimals & % sign

[Janetoes]

Excel spreadsheets are created in another department and I put them into PPT.
I cannot align columns of numbers the way I want. The first line of the
column is usually 2 digits and then a percent sign. The rest of the numbers
do not have the % sign. In Excel, I cannot find an align on decimal, and if
you right align, it is off. I need the numbers centered in the column but
aligned by decimal. I really do not want to have to put blank spaces in the
numbers. (Is there an easy way to do put in blank spaces? And the only way I
can do that is to use the underscore and color it white.)
EX:
28%
133
5
23
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
THanks
Janetoes

 

[Tyro]

You can format the rows beginning with row 2 (not lines, Excel does not have
lines) in the column with a custom format such as 0_% assuming your numbers
after row 1, the row with the percent, are whole numbers - no fractions.
0_% tells Excel to format the number as a whole number (0) and leave a space
at the right equal in size to the space occupied by a % sign (_%).

Tyro

 

[Janetoes]

I tried your suggestion. I have the column of numbers right aligned. I
selected from the 2nd row down, right mouse clicked, numbers tab , custom and
pasted in 0_%. The numbers are still right aligned with no space to the
right. I sometimes also have numbers with the arrow symbol or ** at the end.
Any suggestions for making them align?
Janetoes

 

[Tyro]

Perhaps your "numbers" are numbers stored as text and right aligned. If
so, formatting as 0_% will have no effect.
You'll have to clean up your data to have numbers stored as numbers.

Tyro

 

[Janetoes]

I think you are correct. I am new to Excel. So please forgive my ignorance. I
am a graphic artist just trying to clean up the charts to bring into PPT. So
how do you change "data" into "numbers"? I think I am going to right justify
the column of "numbers" and then right indent them so they align close enough
to the first row of numbers with the percent%. Is there any other work around
for text?
Thanks for your help.
Janetoes

 

[Tyro]

I could not advise you how to clean up your data without seeing it. You seem
to have some issues, **, arrow symbol, numbers stored as text, etc. All of
that may have to be addressed for each category. Sounds to me like this
other department needs to clean up its data before giving it to you.
Normally, numbers are just that, numbers and not mixed as numbers, text and
who knows what. Perhaps they could make their numbers numbers. Why should it
be your headache?

Tyro