How to Format Phone Numbers in Microsoft Excel

Want to convert your spreadsheet numbers into US phone numbers that include area codes? This tool can help! Use Excel’s phone number formatting option instead of manually inserting hyphens and parentheses.

Excel allows you to format your data in numerous ways. For example, “5555551234” can be formatted as “(555) 555-1234” for US phone numbers.

How to Apply Phone Number Formatting in Microsoft Excel

Open your spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel to begin.

Select the cell or cells containing your phone numbers in your spreadsheet.

The “Home” tab in Excel’s ribbon at the top should be clicked when your phone numbers are highlighted.

On the “Home” tab, in the “Number” section, click “Number Format” (an arrow icon) at the bottom-right corner.

You will see a “Format Cells” window. Here, from the “Category” list on the left, select “Special.”

In the “Type” section on the right, click “Phone Number.” Then click “OK” at the bottom.

Note: If you don’t see “Phone Number” in the “Type” section, click the “Locale” drop-down menu and choose “English (United States)” or another supported country.

On your spreadsheet, you can see that all of your phone numbers have been formatted correctly.

In the “Format Cells” window, pick “Custom” if you want to change the format of these numbers to something else.