Table of contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Data order in tables
  3. Hierarchy and grouping
  4. Column spacing
  5. Fonts
  6. Bold text in tables
  7. Number alignment
  8. Number rounding
  9. Effective rounding
  10. Totals
  11. Measures
  12. Shading, gridlines and other lines
  13. Units
  14. Titles and subtitles
  15. Annotations
  16. Source

Print this page

Download as PDF

Effective rounding

Effective rounding can be used to communicate and present numbers so that they can be understood quickly and easily. Remove any unimportant or irrelevant information, but keep the detail in the data.

Look at whether there is a difference between the first numbers, second numbers, third numbers and so on. You should round the numbers for comparison to two effective digits.

Example of how to effectively round numbers in a table, showing that £25,289.37 could be rounded to £25,300 and £28,306.24 could be £28,300.

When using effective rounding you may need an extra level of rounding when a value is small enough that the detail is removed when using two effective digits. If the value is not important it could be removed from the table. If it is important the level of effective rounding should be adjusted to an appropriate level.

Three levels of effective rounding

21.9 million
17.3 million
11.2 million
0.4 million

Not (no effective rounding)

21,912,963
17,271,420
11,243,817
436,254

Not (two levels of effective rounding)

21 million
17 million
11 million
0 million