Excel Convert - Decimal Binary Hexadecimal Octal

Functions Used Converting Between Number Systems In Microsoft Excel

Jul 20, 2009 Martin Bell

1 COMMENTS
JOIN THE CONVERSATION

DECIMAL NUMBERS ARE BASE 10 - IAN BRITTON

Microsoft Excel provides functions that convert between binary, hexadecimal, decimal and octal number systems. They are easy to use and they follow the same format.

Microsoft Excel numbers in a spreadsheet are easily converted between the decimal, binary, hexadecimal and octal number systems. This is particularly useful to computer programmers. It is especially useful to those trying to control hardware using binary switches, or those trying to decipher a binary or hexadecimal file format. The free blog "Excel Functions - Tips & Tricks" allows the user to enter questions that are then posted on to the web page. Convert To Decimal From Binary, Hexadecimal and Octal Conversion from binary, hexadecimal and octal to decimal is very straightforward. The three functions are:
Ads by Google

Convert Delphi to C++ Migrate your Delphi programs to portable and fast C++. Free demo. texttransformer.com Hex tools Get Hex tools info from American Machinist AmericanMachinist.com

BIN2DEC, HEX2DEC, and OCT2DEC

Examples: They are used in the following way.

MORE ON THIS TOPIC

ASCII Codes For Common Keyboard Characters Using Home Computers to Control Household Device How Binary Numbers are Used to Store Data

=BIN2DEC(11111111) will give the answer 255 =OCT2DEC(7777) will give the answer 4095 =HEX2DEC(ABCD) will give the answer 43981 Convert To Binary, Hexadecimal and Octal From Decimal The functions used are named similarly to those when converting to decimal, but an extra parameter is needed in the function. It is necessary to tell the function how many figures are needed in the answer. For binary, eight figures are used mostly. Octal typically uses three, and hexadecimal uses two. The function names are: DEC2BIN, DEC2OCT, and DEC2HEX Example: =DEC2BIN(255,8) will give the answer 11111111 =DEC2OCT(255,8) will give the answer 00000377 =DEC2HEX(255,8) will give the answer 000000FF Binary, Octal and Hexadecimal Conversion Functions Apart from the six functions described so far, there are six others: BIN2OCT, BIN2HEX,

OCT2BIN, OCT2HEX, HEX2BIN, and HEX2OCT These are used in exactly the same way as those described in the section Convert To Binary, Hexadecimal and Octal From Decimal. Errors Found When Converting Between Number Systems In Excel It is sometimes possible to enter the function and the cell shows #NUM! or #NAME? There are several possible causes of this. 1. An out of range digit is used. This means that a digit has been used in the argument that is not part of that number base. For example: = OCT2DEC(8) is not valid, because the digits in octal are 0 to 7, and 8 is not allowed. The same is true for BIN2DEC(2) or HEX2DEC(G). 2. Too many significant figures requested. For example, = DEC2BIN(255,11) will give #NUM!, whereas DEC2BIN(255,10) will give 0011111111. Each function has a limit on the number of digits that may be returned. 3. Hexadecimal function arguments that use letters need to be inside quotation marks. For example, =HEX2DEC(A) will result in #NAME? but =HEX2DEC(A) will give 10. 4. There is a limit to the number range that may be converted. The actual range varies, depending on the number system being converted to, as well as the Excel version being used. For example, 255 decimal is the highest number allowed when converting to binary. Exceeding the maximum number allowed will give the#NUM! error. This can be worked around, however, by writing a function to extend the use. For instance: =CONCATENATE(DEC2BIN(INT(A1/512),9),DEC2BIN(MOD(A1,512),9)) will extend the dec2bin function limit from 255 to 262,143

Potential Problems When Converting Between Number Systems in Excel Negative numbers ignore the output format requested. For example, =DEC2BIN(-1,8) will give the 10-digit result 1111111111. This may or may not be a problem for the user. Another problem that the user needs to be careful of is that the output for all functions is a decimal number. In other words, the function =DEC2BIN(15,8) gives the correct answer 00001111. However, the answer in the cell is treated by Excel as a decimal number, so the function =SQRT( DEC2BIN(15,8) ) gives the answer 33.33 ! One final point is that the number system conversion function in Excel is set up for integers only, so the function =DEC2BIN(15,8) will give the answer 00001111, whereas =DEC2BIN(14.9999,8) will give the answer 00001110, or 14 in decimal. Summary of Microsoft Excel Number System Conversion Functions Microsoft Excel provides twelve functions that allow conversion between the decimal, binary, octal and hexadecimal number systems. They are very easy to use, although care must be taken when accessing them and using the results. More information about Excel functions is available free online, or in Excel for Dummies by Greg Harvey. The free blog "Excel Functions - Tips & Tricks" allows the user to enter questions that are then posted on to the web page.

Read more at Suite101: Excel Convert - Decimal Binary Hexadecimal Octal: Functions Used Converting
Between Number Systems In Microsoft Excel | Suite101.com http://suite101.com/article/excel-convertdecimal-binary-hexadecimal-octal-a133316#ixzz1zewGcdWO