How to Type the Degree Sign in Excel (Every Method Explained)

The degree symbol (°) is one of those characters that doesn't live on any standard keyboard key — yet it shows up constantly in spreadsheets tracking temperatures, angles, coordinates, and measurements. Excel doesn't block you from using it, but it doesn't make it obvious either. Here's every reliable method for inserting a degree sign in Excel, along with when each approach makes the most sense.

Why the Degree Symbol Isn't on Your Keyboard

Most keyboards follow a layout designed decades ago, long before every possible special character could be anticipated. The degree sign (°) is a Unicode character (U+00B0) — it exists in every modern font, but it's mapped to a position that requires extra steps to reach. How you reach it depends on your operating system, your Excel version, and how often you need to use it.

Method 1: Keyboard Shortcut (Windows)

The fastest method on Windows is the Alt code:

1. Click the cell where you want the degree symbol
2. Hold Alt and type 0176 on the numeric keypad (not the top-row number keys)
3. Release Alt — the ° symbol appears

⌨️ This only works with the dedicated numeric keypad active. If Num Lock is off, or you're on a laptop without a full numpad, this method won't work reliably.

Method 2: Keyboard Shortcut (Mac)

On a Mac, the shortcut is simpler:

• Press Option + Shift + 8

This works system-wide, including inside Excel for Mac. No numeric keypad required.

Method 3: Copy and Paste from the Formula Bar

If shortcuts feel unreliable, you can type the degree symbol directly into Excel's formula bar by copying it from elsewhere:

1. Find a ° character online or in another document
2. Copy it (Ctrl+C / Cmd+C)
3. Click your target cell in Excel
4. Paste (Ctrl+V / Cmd+V)

Simple, but not practical if you're adding degree symbols frequently across a large spreadsheet.

Method 4: Insert Symbol Dialog Box

Excel has a built-in symbol browser that gives you access to every Unicode character:

1. Click the cell where you want the symbol
2. Go to Insert → Symbol (in the Symbols group on the ribbon)
3. In the dialog box, set Font to your current font (or "normal text")
4. Set Subset to Latin-1 Supplement
5. Find and click the degree sign (°)
6. Click Insert, then Close

This method is slower but useful if you need to verify you're inserting the correct character — there are look-alike symbols (like the masculine ordinal indicator º) that can cause confusion in data.

Method 5: CHAR Function

Excel's CHAR function lets you insert any character by its ASCII/Unicode number directly in a formula:

=CHAR(176) 

This returns the ° symbol as a text value. More usefully, you can combine it with other data:

="Temperature: "&A1&CHAR(176)&"C" 

This approach is powerful when you're building formatted output strings programmatically — for instance, displaying a calculated temperature reading with its unit automatically appended. The limitation is that the result is a text string, not a numeric value, so you can't perform further math on it without stripping the symbol back out.

Method 6: AutoCorrect

If you type degree symbols repeatedly, Excel's AutoCorrect feature can automate the whole thing:

1. Go to File → Options → Proofing → AutoCorrect Options
2. In the "Replace" field, type a short trigger (e.g., DEG)
3. In the "With" field, paste or insert the ° character
4. Click Add, then OK

Now every time you type DEG and press Space or Enter, Excel replaces it with °. This is worth setting up if you work with temperature or angle data regularly.

The Look-Alike Problem: ° vs. º

🔍 This catches people out more often than it should. There are two visually similar characters:

They look nearly identical in most fonts. If your degree symbols were entered inconsistently (especially through copy-paste from different sources), this can cause problems when sorting, filtering, or using text functions. The Insert Symbol dialog is the most reliable way to confirm which one you're inserting.

Formatting Numbers to Display Degrees Automatically

If you're working with a column of numeric values that all represent degrees, you don't have to manually add the symbol to every cell. Custom number formatting handles it:

1. Select the cells
2. Press Ctrl+1 to open Format Cells
3. Go to Number → Custom
4. In the Type field, enter: 0"°" (or 0.0"°" for one decimal place)
5. Click OK

The cells still hold pure numeric values — you can average them, sum them, use them in formulas — but they display with a ° appended. This is generally the cleanest approach for data-heavy spreadsheets where the degree symbol is a display choice, not part of the underlying data.

Which Variables Actually Matter Here

The right method isn't universal — it depends on a few things specific to your situation:

• How often you're inserting degree symbols (one-off vs. bulk entry)
• Whether the values need to stay numeric for calculations, or are purely display text
• Your hardware — Windows with a numpad, Windows without, or Mac each have different shortcut options
• Your Excel version — the ribbon layout and some dialog boxes differ between Excel 2016, 2019, Microsoft 365, and Excel for the web
• Consistency requirements — if multiple people are entering data into the same file, a formatting rule or AutoCorrect setting may matter more than any individual shortcut

A casual user adding a temperature label to a single cell has a very different need from someone building a data pipeline where 500 rows need clean, sortable degree values. The same symbol, inserted in different ways, produces meaningfully different results depending on what you need to do with it next.