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Round in Excel

There are many functions to round in Excel, functions that when we apply them you will say that you have applied them manually in a notebook and other functions that we cannot imagine, we are going to round decimals in Excel and round integers. But here we will only explain three ways to round in Excel out of the many ways it has.

Round decimals, formula =ROUND()

To round decimals we will use the following formula to round:

\text{=ROUND(*number*, *number of digits to round*)}

If we have Excel configured in Spanish, the formula will be the following:

\text{=REDONDEAR(*number*, *number of digits to round*)}

Anyway, for example: if we have a number like 1.234 and what we want to do is show only two digits, we will use the following formula:

\text{=ROUND(}1.234, \ 2 \text{)}

What the formula will give us as result the following:

1.23

See it for yourself:

example-of-rounding-in-excel
Figure 1. Rounding example 1.

And so on, if we put the number of digits at 1, what we will get will be the following:

example-2-of-rounding-in-excel
Figure 2. Rounding example 2.

However, this ROUND formula has the peculiarity that it has a rule that what it does is that when it has a number between 5 and 9, it rounds it to the number above, what I mean is that if we have a number like 40.55 and what we want is to round a digit, what we will get is 40.6

\text{=ROUND(}40.55, \ 1 \text{)} \ \longrightarrow \ 40.6

Here are more examples of the ROUND function

Examples of the Excel ROUND function

\text{=ROUND(}5.5, \ 0 \text{)} \ \longrightarrow \ 6

\text{=ROUND(}5.4, \ 0 \text{)} \ \longrightarrow \ 5

\text{=ROUND(}43.3, \ -1 \text{)} \ \longrightarrow \ 40

\text{=ROUND(}45.1, \ -1 \text{)} \ \longrightarrow \ 50

\text{=ROUND(}47.18, \ 1 \text{)} \ \longrightarrow \ 47.2

\text{=ROUND(}47, \ -1 \text{)} \ \longrightarrow \ 50

\text{=ROUND(}-45.1, \ -1 \text{)} \ \longrightarrow \ -50

Round up, formula =ROUNDUP()

The way to apply this round up formula in Excel is as follows:

\text{=ROUNDUP(*number*, *number of digits to round*)}

Or if we have Excel configured in Spanish we will apply the following formula:

\text{=REDONDEAR.MAS(*number*, *number of digits to round*)}

And what this formula does is round a number up depending on the number of decimal places we put in it. For example: if we have the number 1,234 and we want to round it up two digits, we will write the following in the formula:

\text{=ROUNDUP(}1.234, 2\text{)}

What Excel will return the following:

1.24

example-of-round-up-in-excel
Figure 3. Example of rounding up.

\text{=ROUNDUP(}5.4, \ 0 \text{)} \ \longrightarrow \ 6

\text{=ROUNDUP(}43.3, \ -1 \text{)} \ \longrightarrow \ 50

\text{=ROUNDUP(}45.1, \ 0 \text{)} \ \longrightarrow \ 46

\text{=ROUNDUP(}-45.1, \ -1 \text{)} \ \longrightarrow \ -50

As you can see, it is not like the ROUND function that follows a rule to round up or down, this ROUNDUP function will always round up.

Round down, formula =ROUNDDOWN()

This way of rounding is by applying the same concept as rounding up, only that the rounding will do it down. At first you will think that the formula does nothing and that it is the same as the ROUND formula, but when we see some examples you will understand how it works. To apply this rounding, what we will do is write the following formula:

\text{=ROUNDDOWN(*number*, *number of digits to round*)}

Or if we have Excel configured in Spanish we will apply the following formula:

\text{=REDONDEAR.MENOS(*number*, *number of digits to round*)}

And what this formula does is round a number down depending on the number of decimal places that we put in it. For example: we are going to round the number 1.234 to two digits, before I give you the result, think about the value that Excel will give us, we will write the following in the formula:

\text{=ROUNDDOWN(}1.234, 2\text{)}

And since you thought what is the value that Excel will give us, I will give you the answer:

1.23

example-of-round-down-in-excel
Figure 4. Rounding down example.

And before we think that this formula is over, let’s reason a little. The formula did its function which was to round down since as the number is 1.234 what it did was to round the number to two digits and in the one near the bottom, since rounding down 1.234 is 1.23. It seems that this formula does nothing, but with the following example we will see it more clearly.

Round the number 55.55 with -2, we will write in the formula

\text{=ROUNDDOWN(}55.55, -2\text{)}

And the result that we will obtain is the value of zero.

We will use this formula only when we want to round a number to zero, or when we want to ignore the rule that the ROUND function has that when it has a number between 5 and 9 it rounds it up so that it always rounds it down. In themselves all the formulas have their similarities.

Examples of the Excel ROUNDDOWN function

\text{=ROUNDDOWN(}5.5, \ 0 \text{)} \ \longrightarrow \ 5

\text{=ROUNDDOWN(}5.4, \ 0 \text{)} \ \longrightarrow \ 5

\text{=ROUNDDOWN(}43.3, \ -1 \text{)} \ \longrightarrow \ 40

\text{=ROUNDDOWN(}45.1, \ -1 \text{)} \ \longrightarrow \ 40

\text{=ROUNDDOWN(}43.28, \ 1 \text{)} \ \longrightarrow \ 43.2

\text{=ROUNDDOWN(}-45.1, \ -1 \text{)} \ \longrightarrow \ -40

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