How do regional settings affect Google Sheets vs Excel?
Excel on Windows often follows OS regional settings for decimals and dates. Google Sheets uses File > Settings > Locale for separators and date parsing, independent of the operating system. Match locale when formulas use semicolon argument separators.
When to use it
Use Sheets locale settings when imported Excel files show date or decimal errors.
When to skip it
Skip locale changes when the sheet only serves one country and already displays correctly.
Better Sheets resources
Related Tutorials
Watch how Windows Regional Settings works
Every Locale Listed in Google Sheets and a Tool to Save Your Sanity
Related blog posts
Guides that explain Windows Regional Settings in more depth.
Google Sheets Locales. What are they?
Hello, Better Sheet members and non-Better Sheet members! This tutorial is about every locale listed in Google Sheets. If you live in a country that is not well represented with blog posts or someone makes a blog post about a Google Sheets issue, they create a Google Sheet formula and then you copy and paste it into your sheet and it has the wrong delimiter. How do you resolve that? I'm going to show you how you can fix that and how you can know if there's a problem. Locales. What are the...
Read post →Every Locale Listed in Google Sheets and a Tool to Save Your Sanity
If you live in a country that is not well represented with blog posts or someone makes a blog post about a Google Sheets issue, they create a Google Sheet formula and then you copy and paste it into your sheet and it has the wrong delimiter. How do you resolve that?
Read post →12 Google Sheets Tips for Project Managers: Boost Your Efficiency and Collaboration!
Enhance your data organization, collaboration, and efficiency.. Discover how to leverage Google Sheets for project management.
Read post →Related terms
Locale separators
Locale controls whether function arguments separate with commas or semicolons and whether decimals use dot or comma. A sheet set to France may expect =SUM(A1;A10) while US expects =SUM(A1,A10). CSV imports and array literals also clash when decimal commas meet comma separators. File > Settings > Locale sets the default behavior for new formulas in that file.
Read guide →cell formatting
Cell formatting controls how values display without necessarily changing the stored value underneath. Currency, percent, date, and plain text formats keep reports readable and prevent Sheets from auto-converting IDs into dates. Good formatting is the difference between a sheet leadership trusts and one they argue with.
Read guide →importing data into Sheets
Importing means pulling external data into a spreadsheet tab: from a file upload, another Google Sheet, a published CSV URL, or a function like IMPORTRANGE. The import dialog controls separator, locale, and whether new rows replace or append existing data.
Read guide →Done reading about Windows Regional Settings?
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