19. The TEXT and VALUE Functions

Cell formatting does not work inside text: ="Total: "&B2 shows "Total: 184.5". To make a number look nice inside a sentence, use TEXT(number, "format"):

• "#,##0" adds a thousands separator: 2,500;
• "#,##0.00" or "$#,##0.00" shows two decimals, with a dollar sign if you like;
• "0%", "m/d/yyyy", "dddd" (day of the week), "mmmm" (month name).

VALUE("1,250") does the opposite: it turns text that looks like a number into a real number. You need this often after exports from banks and accounting systems.