How does Increase decimal and Decrease decimal work in Excel

Question

How the increase decimal operation is performed in Excel and how they done it?

Case 1 :

I enter a number in a cell whose number of digit is less than 11.

For instance A1 cell value be : 123

If I perform 2 times increase decimal operation then value be : 123.00

For every increase decimal operation an additional 0 is appended to the digit in decimal place.

Case2:

If I enter number greater than 11 it becomes exponent form

For instance I enter 123456789012(greater than 11 digits) the value get changed to exponent form as 1.23457E+11

If I perform increase decimal operation 1 time then value be 1.234568E+11

While performing increase decimal the exponent value is not increased but the digits I entered initially are displaying one by one.

My doubt is

1.23457E+11 * 10 ie. (Intial value when i entered digits > 11) * (Since I increase by one decimal)

So the result should be 1.23457E+12. Exponent number should be increased as (1.23457*10pow11) * 10pow1 so result shoud be 1.23457*10pow12 but the value in the cell is 1.234568E+11

I have the same doubt in Decrease decimal too.

Please help me on this.. I want to understand it clearly, So help me guys.

Answer 1

increasing/decreasing decimals or using the scientific format for numbers is just FORMATTING. The underlying value stored in the cell does not change. It is just the DISPLAY of the cell value that changes.

See here to understand how scientific notation works in Excel.

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/display-numbers-in-scientific-exponential-notation-f85a96c0-18a1-4249-81c3-e934cd2aae25