How the heck do you stop this thing from rounding up or down. I
want/need accurate numbers, not estimates.
XL, like any other spreadsheet using IEEE double precision floating
point math, has its precision is fixed at about 15 decimal digits, so it
will round a calculated value of
123.4567890123456
to
123.456789012346
There's not a lot you can do to change this - there are a couple of
add-ins that claim to increase precision to 200 digits, but I've never
tested them. You could also use Mathematica or another application.
However, unless you have the Preferences/Calculations/Precision As
Displayed checkbox checked, the value XL stores in the cell isn't
rounded when the display format shows fewer decimal places. For example,
if you have the display format set to show 2 decimal places
(Format/Cells/Number/Number), the above number will display
123.46
but the stored value remains the same, which you can verify by expanding
the number of decimal places in the display (the 0->00 button or
changing the number of digits in the Format/Cells/Number/Number dialog).
If that's what you mean by "rounding", reformat your cell to the desired
number of digits.
