Compare number formatting of two cells in excel using vba

Question

My problem:

Cell A1: value =12 and the number property is general. Cell A2: value =12 and the number property is number with 2 decimal points, so the number is shown as "12.00"

How can I validate if both cells have the same number property, either in VBA using macros or in any other way?

Answer 1

You can compare their NumberFormat property:

If Range("A1").NumberFormat = Range("A2").NumberFormat Then

However, There are a number of different formats, including custom formats, that can be applied to cells that would make them look the same, without them having exactly the same NumberFormat value.

This means that comparing formats will never be as reliable as comparing the values. (It is also unusual to need to compare formats.)

Answer 2

You can use the NumberFormat method.

Using this code, with 12 in A1 (formatted as general) and 12 in B1 (formatted as 12.00)

Option Explicit
Sub Stuff()

    MsgBox Range("A1").NumberFormat
    MsgBox Range("B1").NumberFormat

End Sub

Will return messages of "General" and "0.00" respectively.

So using

If Range("A1").NumberFormat = Range("B1").NumberFormat Then
    -- do stuff here
End If

Will tell you if they are equal to one another or not.

Answer 3

It sounds like you are really concerned with the values of the cells. The .NumberFormat property simply masks how the value appears, visually, to the user of the spreadsheet.

So you can easily do an equivalence test on the two values , like:

Sub Test()

MsgBox [A1].Value = [A2].Value

End Sub

Or you could do this in the worksheet formula:

=A1=A2

That formula should return either True or False , and should ignore the cell's formatting .