How to Insert Symbol in Excel Numbers?

excelsirji Excel Data Tips

Have you ever faced the challenge while using special character symbols in number formatting or any customized number formatting?

It is an easy method to insert any symbol in numbers i.e Delta Symbol or Special Character Symbols in Excel Number Formatting.

You may easily do this by following below steps:

Inserting Symbols in Numbers

Here I am using “Delta Symbol” to customized the Number formatting. You may insert any Special Character symbol with the same method. Just Copy the Special Symbol or learn shortcut of inserting any Symbol:

Select the Cells or Column where you want numbers to be shown with Delta (▲) symbol

Right Click on the selected Cells and click on “Format Cells”

Select Custom format under Number Menu as shown below:

So here you will see the number format of your data. I have shown two samples here with different number format:

You will mostly find two types of formatting under “Custom Format” as shown in above image either
i) General Formatting
ii) Currency Formatting

Though there are many other formatting available as per your data however you may insert symbols using this method easily. So lets continue 🙂

i) General Number Formatting in Excel

So Click at the beginning of “General” as shown below and insert “Delta Symbol” either:

You may copy the below Delta (▲) sign and paste it at the beginning and press Space Key after Delta Sign (▲), if you want to see gap between the sign and number. You may copy any of the symbol as below and use same method:

Delta Symbol
▲
Degree Symbol
°
Check Mark
Ö
Cents
¢
Sigma
s

Or you can enter it by Holding ALT Key and press 3 & 0 in sequential manner. Do you want to know more shortcuts for inserting Special Characters Symbols ? Click at below link:

Special Characters Shortcut

ii) Custom Currency Number Formatting in Excel

In Currency Number Formatting or Accounting Number Formatting, there are two parts of format i) for Positive Number ii) Negative Number. So you need to insert it twice if you want to show Special Symbols for both formats else only at the beginning of Negative Or Positive Format. Lets go through below:

You may copy the below Delta (▲) sign and paste it at the beginning and press Space Key after Delta Sign (▲), if you want to see gap between the sign and number. You may copy any of the symbol as below and use same method:

Delta Symbol
▲
Degree Symbol
°
Check Mark
Ö
Cents
¢
Sigma
s

Or you can enter it by Holding ALT Key and press 3 & 0 in sequential manner. Do you want to know more shortcuts for inserting Special Characters Symbols ? Click at below link:

Special Characters Shortcut

Now if you see at below image, you will observe that I inserted the Delta (▲) symbol twice because here currency format contains two format:
i) One is for Positive (+) “$#,##0_)”
ii) and one is for Negative (-) “[Red]($#,##0)”. Red is a color of the number when shows Negative (-)

Both the formats are separated by “;” in this below format

So we need to add the Delta sign as described at the beginning on both the Formats and it should look like as below:
▲ $#,##0_);▲ [Red]($#,##0)

If you want to see Delta (▲) sign only for Negative numbers. So you should add the symbol only on Negative Format and it should be as below:

▲ $#,##0_);▲ [Red]($#,##0)