Excel Basics:
Regional Settings

Step-by-Step: Regional Settings

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What you will learn:

to change what number system and currency Windows uses

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Start with:

1. On the Start menu select:
   
    Settings  |  Control Panel 
   and in the Control Panel double-click on the Regional Settings icon.
   OR

    On the Start menu select:
     Control Panel  | Regional and Language Options 

    

   Control Panel does not show a menu: Click on the item Control Panel to open it and then double click the Regional and Language Options icon.
    

   A dialog opens where you can change settings for things that can vary in different countries: Number, Currency, Time, Date.

   Dialog in Win98

   Dialog in WinXP

   Choosing a language and country on the drop list makes changes on the other four tabs (Number, Currency, Time, Date. Sometimes you might want to use those tabs to make some changes separately.

   In older versions of Windows you could click on the map to pick your country, but not any more. 

   In WinXP the the Regional Options tab lets you choose a language from a drop list. The effects are shown in the Samples on the tab. You can use the Customize button to get to separate tabs for Number, Currency, Time, and Date if you want to make only certain changes.
    

2. Click on each of the tabs and see what you can change and what the choices are. 
   Click also on the Customize button and inspect the choices on all the tabs of that dialog.

   Excel uses the measurement system specified in this dialog for the page margins (about the only thing that is truly measured in Excel). The US system is "inches" but most of the rest of the world uses the metric system.
    

3. On the Regional Settings/Regional Options tab, choose English (United States) from the drop list. You automatically set values for Number, Currency, Time, and Date to the normal usage in the United States. These are the settings that the exercises use. If your country uses different settings, your instructor may wish to adapt the directions. 
    
4. If you did not make any changes, click on the Cancel button.
    
5. If you made changes, click on the Apply button.
   If you changed the Regional Setting, a dialog appears that tells you to restart the computer.  In fact, Excel can use these settings even if you do not restart at this time. You may choose to restart or not, whichever you wish. If you do not restart and your computer crashes or locks up before you restart, the new Regional Settings will be lost.
   
   If you only made changes on one of the other tabs, you may not get the prompt to restart the computer at all. 

   Excel can use your new values right away, even if it was open when you made the change. Nice!