How to format number as a fraction

[bebo021999]

Dear all,
We all know that we can format a fraction like this:
A1 = 50
A2 = 100
A3 = A1/A2 = 50/100
by Format Cells / number / fraction / As hundredths (30/100)

But, if:
A1 = 50
A2 = 90
A3 = A1/A2 = 50/90

How I can format like this ?
If we do: A3 = A1&"/"A2 =, returns something like "50/90", but we cannot do calculation on it.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Tom Urtis]

First, 50/90 is the same as 5/9 so that really is the fraction you'd end up with in that limited example.

But to answer the question two ways, you can always enter into a cell this for example:

0 50/90

That is a zero, a space, the number 50, a forward slash, and the number 90

and that will produce a fraction in the cell as 5/9


Taking this a step further, you can generally enter a fraction into a cell, such as 5 3/4 (notice space between 5 and 3/4). For fractions less than 1 (example 3/5) use a preceding zero, example 0 3/5



Now to your point about formatting a formula result as a fraction, for the formula-containing cell, right click on it, select Format Cells > Number tab > Custom format as

# ?/?

Note the space between # and ?/?

Otherwise you could use the TEXT function but it would format the result as text and not have it be usable as a number if it serves as a precedent cell in other cells' calculations.

 

[bebo021999]

Thanks Urtis,
Finally, we can format as 5/9, not 50/90
Sometime I need to show original source in the result.