Thank you Jerry, Bernard, and Paul for your kind replies, each with your
own unique way of dealing with the problem. I shall try all three to see
which one would suit me best, but these are all good solutions. I am
just disappointed that Excel does not have some built in function for
something so simple, and something that I think a lot of people come
across.

Jerry raised the issue of whether "these" are binary prefixes or not.
In fact, they are prefixes, as they are normally placed in front of
units, such as "kg" and "cm". In the case of finance, they are not
placed next to the unit, i.e. the currency, because the financial world
likes to have its own peculiar notations. I suppose in scientific
notation, one thousand dollars whould be written as "1 k$" and not the
now accepted "$1K". Whether it is binary or not, I don't know. Perhaps
decimal prefix would be better? As for the ambiguity of whether "K" is
1,000 or 1,024, it is commonly recognised that "K" is kilo, which is
1,000, while "Ki" is kibi, which is 1,024.

However, like Bernard, I do admit I am not completely sure that binary
prefix is the most appropriate name for these things. There is probably
a more apt name out there, but I don't know it. Binary prefix was the
first thing that came to my mind, as it drifted back to electronic lab
days. As for a billion being a "million million" in the UK, that is no
longer the case. The UK now go with the US standard, which, for once,
makes more sense, unlike its obstinate refusal to use the SI / metric
system.

Once again, thank you all for your help.


--
Dogbert
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