In this article, we’ll present in detail how to round down in Google Sheets using the round function.
If you work with a large amount of text, data, and numbers, you must be well-aware of the brilliancy and usefulness of spreadsheets.
Google Sheets is a fantastic tool that helps you work with numbers and text. It is a wonderful alternative to Microsoft Excel, offering the same features and similar functions.
For instance, you can quickly tabulate numbers and plot charts using numbers through Google Sheets’ powerful functions.
While working with numbers, sometimes it is essential to be as accurate as possible and keep significant decimal places.
However, a spreadsheet does not look aesthetic or presentable if too many decimals are present. For that reason, it becomes essential to round off data and get rid of the decimal places.
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How to round down in Google Sheets
It is straightforward to round up or round down numbers in Google Sheets. However, the app does not work as well when trying to round off percentages.
To make the numbers on your spreadsheet appear uniform and pleasant, it is best to round the numbers to the same amount of decimal places.
Of course, if you round the numbers off uniformly, your spreadsheet will appear incredible to look at it, and it will also make it easier to read all the data.
Google Sheets offers numerous round functions. In this article, we will be explaining the different types of round functions in Google Sheets and how to round down your numbers using it.
Understanding the round function
Before getting into the specifics of using the round function in Google Sheets, it is imperative to learn what rounding a number means.
There are two basic rules behind the rounding digits formula.
- If the digit to the right of the digit you want to round after the decimal point is less than 5, you do not change the digit you wanted to round. For example, if you have a value like 53.213 and you want to round the digit 1, you will change it to 53.21;
- If the digit to the right of the digit you want to round after the decimal point is 5 or more, you will add 1 to the digit you wanted to round. For example, if you have a value such as 85.258 and you want to round the digit 5, you will change the value to 85.26.
Types of round functions in Google Sheets
There are four types of round functions in Google Sheets, and each serves a different purpose. The round functions in Google Sheets are:
- ROUND
- ROUNDUP
- ROUNDDOWN
- MROUND
ROUND Function
Using the ROUND function to round numbers in Google Sheets will follow the same criteria as mentioned above.
The formula or syntax of using the ROUND function to round decimal point digits is as follows:
ROUND (value, [places])
Value indicates the cell number or a decimal digit you want to round, and places indicate how many decimal places you want to round.
So, for example, if you write “=round (3.8912, 1)” in Google Sheets, it will reduce the decimal point place to 1 and change the given number to 3.9, as shown in the round function statement present in the image below.
ROUNDUP Function
Using the ROUNDUP function to round numbers for the decimal point in Google Sheets will always round the given number up (add 1), regardless of whether the decimal digits having numbers more or less than 5.
The ROUNDUP function also has the same formula as the ROUND function:
ROUNDUP (value, [places])
Value and places also have the same meaning as for the ROUND function. For example, if you want to round the number 2.3142 to one decimal place value using the ROUNDUP function, the ROUNDUP function will round it to 2.4.
If you’re going to round it to zero decimal places, the ROUNDUP function will change the value to 3, as shown below:
ROUNDDOWN Function
When you use the ROUNDDOWN function for rounding numbers in Google Sheets, it will always round the number down (does not add 1), regardless of the decimal digits have numbers less than or greater than the number 5.
The ROUNDDOWN function also uses the same formula as the ROUND function.
For example, if you want to round the number 3.2142 to one decimal place using the ROUNDDOWN function, it will transform the number value to 3.2, and it can be seen below in the function statement.
Similarly, when you want to round the number to zero decimal places using the ROUNDDOWN function, the number from our example will reduce our value to the nearest whole number, 3.
For the ROUND function to round numbers in general, you can also use a negative number for decimal places. We have only used positive integers in all our examples in the places part of our formulae.
First, however, let’s see how the ROUNDDOWN function works with negative numbers for decimal places.
For example, we have the number 226.5648, and we want to use the ROUNDDOWN function and round the number down to -1 decimal place.
We will use the same formula as we did earlier, so the function statement will look like this:
The ROUNDDOWN function will change the number value to 220 because we put -1 in our formula’s places part.
Now, let’s extend the example further and change the decimal place to -2. The ROUNDDOWN function will change the number value to 200, as can be seen in the image.
MROUND Function
The MROUND function is another fantastic way to round your numbers. For example, if you want to round the number to the nearest multiple, you may use the MROUND function.
Unlike the other round functions, the MROUND has a slightly different syntax, and it does not take any negative value unless the number you are rounding is also negative.
The formula for MROUND function is shown in the image below.
Here, the value is the number you want to round, and the factor is the number to whose nearest multiple you want the number to round.
In our example, we are rounding 335.8145 to the nearest multiple of 2. Therefore, the MROUND function will change the rounded number to 336 now.
Now, let’s round the number to the nearest integer multiple of 9. So, we will replace the factor part with 9.
The MROUND function has now changed our number to 333, divisible by 9.
Wrap up
Google Sheets work similarly to Microsoft Excel and offers most of the same functions. However, while a lot of the functions are similar, it features some specific ones.
This article taught us how to use the round function and some different types of rounding function Google Sheets offers.
We also learned more about round down in Google Sheets using the ROUNDDOWN function. Unfortunately, after using any round function, the values of different decimal numbers may change.
So, while the data would look good after using round functions and changing the number values by rounding to a certain value, the value changes may appear imprecise.
Another interesting function is the MROUND, which helps you change the number value to the nearest multiple.
When you want to change a number value to become divisible by a specific number, you can use the MROUND function and change the value of your number through the function to be divisible by that number.
So, it depends on your need – if you want the values to look accurate in your spreadsheet, you do not need to use the round functions and use the total decimal values.
However, if you want the values and digits to be pleasing, the use of different round functions will help you reach your goal.
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