Format a column of numbers with a period after each number

I've gone into Cells, Custom Number Format and created a format as: ##.

and my column of numbers from 1 to 24 is replaced with the literal text "##." in every cell.

How do I make this work?


All I'm trying to do is record the moves of my chess games and numbers without a period look wrong.

Thanks for any help!


John


Mac mini, macOS 15.5

Posted on Jul 8, 2025 9:02 AM

Reply
7 replies

Jul 8, 2025 9:50 AM in response to Johne154

I got it working by creating a rule, if greater than 0, set the number of digits to 2, and Numbers format automatically puts the dash (symbol for space) within the format it shows in green. Then I typed a period after it and it worked!

Thankfully, the space in the format doesn't appear, which is good. I didn't want that, but it seems to be the only way to make it work. Way different from custom formatting of numbers in Excel.


Jul 8, 2025 8:59 PM in response to Badunit

Okay. Thanks, Badunit.

Hmm, the symbols with a blue background are apparently special fields. I was deleting those and typing in my own format, like I used to do in Excel and other spreadsheets. I even tried single and double ampersands to concatenate those symbols with the period.


Looks like I'm going to have to learn a new way of thinking to create custom formats in Numbers.

I did look in the User Guide, but it was sparse. Knowing how Apple documents their products, there's probably additional info in another section of the Numbers User Guide.


Jul 9, 2025 6:28 AM in response to Yellowbox

Thank you, Ian. I considered it, but I need a 4-column table and I'm much more comfortable with the tables in Numbers than in Pages.

I appreciate you offering an alternative. Good thinking!


I haven't input all the moves yet, but this was a rather short game. White won in 24 moves, so I wanted to keep it and study how I could repeat this in another game.




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Format a column of numbers with a period after each number

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