Roman numerals system is a numeral system where numbers are represented by combining Latin alphabet letters. The Roman numeral system was the standard way of writing numbers throughout Europe during the Middle Ages.
In this article, I am going to teach you how to easily convert from Arabic or English numerals to Roman numerals and vice versa using Microsoft Excel or Word.
Without any further ado, let’s get started.
Convert Roman numerals into numbers
Converting Roman numerals to numbers can be done easily with Excel. Whether you want to convert just one roman numeral or a huge list of them, Excel can help you with its Arabic function.
The ARABIC function converts Roman numerals to Arabic numerals. It was added in Excel 2013. Thus, this function will not work for you if you are using an older version of Excel prior to Excel 2013.
Without any further ado, below illustrates how you can convert roman numerals into numbers using the Arabic Excel function.
Syntax:
=ARABIC (roman_text)
Where: roman_text is the Roman numeral in text that you want to convert.
For example, the following formula converts xii to 12:
=ARABIC (“xii”)
You can also include references to another cell or cells in your formula. This enables your formula to work dynamically with the data contained in those cells you are referencing from.
For example, if your formula refers to cell A3 and you change the value contained in A3, the formula result changes to reflect the new value. If you don’t use references in your formulas, you would need to edit the formulas to be able to change the values.
Download Roman Numerals Converter in Excel
Don’t have time to create this formula?
I have created several beautiful templates that you can use to convert Roman numerals to and from the Arabic numerals.
You can download these templates below for free.
Convert numbers to roman numerals using Excel
The first section shows how you may convert roman numerals into Arabic numerals using Microsoft Excel.
You can also do the exact opposite using the ROMAN function.
The ROMAN function in Excel is used to convert Arabic numerals to roman numerals.
This function is explained below with examples.
Syntax
=ROMAN(number, [form])
Where: number is the Arabic number you want to convert into Roman numeral. The [form] part of the function is optional and is not even relevant here.
For example, the following formula converts 24 to XXIV:
=ROMAN(24)
Just like in the first example with the Arabic function, you can also include references to another cell in your formula. This enables your formula to work dynamically with the data contained in the cells you reference.
For example, if your formula refers to cell A3 and you change the value contained in A3, the formula result in cell B3 will also change to reflect the new value. If you don’t use references in your formula, you would have to edit the formula itself to be able to change the values.
Using Microsoft Word
You can also convert Arabic numbers into roman numerals in Microsoft Word, whether you want to convert your numbered list into a Roman numeral numbering format, or you just want to convert one big number.
To convert numbers to Roman numerals in Word, click inside your Word document where you need the conversion to take place and press Ctrl+F9 shortcut on your keyboard. Two curly braces (known as field characters) will appear. Type =Number\*ROMAN between the two curly braces and press F9 to convert the Arabic number to a Roman numeral.
Note: You need to replace the Number in the code with the Arabic numeral you want to convert into a roman numeral.
For a more detailed steps to perform this task, obey the following instructions:
- Place the insertion pointer where you want the conversion to take place.
- Press Ctrl+F9 on your keyboard. This shortcut will display these two curly braces (known as field characters).
- Between these curly braces, type the following code.
=Numbers\*ROMAN
Where Numbers is the number you wish to convert into a roman numeral.
For instance, if you want to convert the number 24 into roman numerals, the field code should be {=24\*ROMAN}.
See illustration below:
- After typing the code with the number you want to convert, press the F9 key.
Make sure that the number you want to convert comes before the backslash in the code. Thus, if you want to convert any number into a Roman numeral, obey the above instructions, and instead of using the number 24 as we did in the above example, type the number of your choice then press the F9 key.
Converting a numbered list to Roman numeral list in Word
If you have a numbered list in your Word document, you can change the number style to either lowercase Roman numerals or Uppercase Roman numerals.
The steps below will show you how to do it:
- First, highlight the list. Or just click inside the list items.
- Then go to the Home tab, in the Paragraph group, click the Numbering drop-down arrow and select the Roman Numeral numbering style from the drop-down menu.
All the list numbers will convert into a Roman Numeral list.
Convert normal date to roman numerals date in Excel
Using Excel, you can create a very clean Roman Numerals converter that converts dates into roman numerals date format.
I already made this template and you can download it from here.