On Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:52:01 -0800, peter
wrote:

i need to show numbers to 3 significant figures. in one column, the numbers
should show as 5.36, 7.56, 20.8, 47.6, 171, 291, 1070. all to 3 significant
figures, but to different numbers of decimal places. thanks.

You can use this formula in a "helper column":

=--TEXT(A1,"."&REPT("0",3)&"E+000")

A possible disadvantage is that if the result has a trailing zero to the right
of the decimal point, it will not be displayed.

If that might be an issue, then a VBA solution may be required to return the
result as a text string.
--ron