Keep Trailing Zeros if in a Formula Result

[ks26]

Hi, new to the forum but i have a formula question. I'm attempting to create a spreadsheet to calculate various things at my work, however I'm running into a problem that I can't solve. In one cell, I have a formula that returns an value to two significant figures. The number of decimal points that this value has is then used at various points throughout the sheet to truncate/round/etc. However, if the first value has a trailing zero as the second significant figure (ex. 0.20), that trailing zero is dropped. This creates problems since downstream calculations are then truncating to an incorrect number of decimal points. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to retain this trailing zero IF the formula results in one?
Thanks in advance

K

[ChemistB]

For display, simply format the cell to number> 2 decimals
I'm not sure how you are using this value in other cells. You can also use conditional formatting to adjust number formatting depending on some criteria but your question is too vague for me to give specifics. Upload a spreadsheet (Go Advanced> Manage Attachments)

[ks26]

Thanks for the quick response ChemistB!
I can't really send you the spreadsheet (confidentiality issues) so I'll try and elaborate here. I'm attempting to create a spreadsheet to automate the calcuation of two properties (we'll call them A and B) that will be reported. Property A needs to be reported to a maximum of two significant figures (which is currently calculating correctly), however, they will not always have two decimal places. For example: 0.036, 0.040 and 5.2 are all valid responses. For that reason, formatting the cell to a certain number of decimal places will not work. Property B is then truncated to the number of decimal places of Property A, so if a trailing zero is being dropped off of Property A, Property B will be incorrectly truncated. Here's an example: the result for Property A is 0.195, the calculation for two significant figures should result in 0.20 (not 0.2), that way Property B can truncate to the hundreths and not the tenths.

[ChemistB]

Okay, here's an attached example
At the top, I have how I think you want things. In A9:A12, I used Conditional formatting to modify the visual output.
Can you make corrections to that to explain better what you are trying to do?

[ks26]

yea that is the general idea of how i want the sheet to calculate, that worked great thank you!