Microsoft Excel 2000

G

Guest

How do I get Excel 2000 in Microsoft Windows XP Professional to show negative
numbers in brackets and not with a dash before the figure?
 
M

Michael Bednarek

How do I get Excel 2000 in Microsoft Windows XP Professional to show negative
numbers in brackets and not with a dash before the figure?

Try this Custom Number Format:
#,##0;(#,##0);0

PS: I think the OS (XP) is irrelevant to the problem.
 
G

Guest

Thank you Michael,

In WIN '98, I did not have that problem as I could just select from the
options given about how I wished negative numbers would be shown (I like to
show negative numbers in brackets) and then just type away. Is there no way
one could do the same in WIN XP other than this individual method of
re-entering to reformatting the cell? What do I do about pre-programmed cells
which have formulae in them?

Thanks Daniel
 
M

Michael Bednarek

Thank you Michael,

In WIN '98, I did not have that problem as I could just select from the
options given about how I wished negative numbers would be shown (I like to
show negative numbers in brackets) and then just type away. Is there no way
one could do the same in WIN XP other than this individual method of
re-entering to reformatting the cell? What do I do about pre-programmed cells
which have formulae in them?

Again, the Operating System (W98, XP) is irrelevant - it's a
(non-)feature of different versions of Excel.

You can of course apply any particular number format to more than one
cell, either with the Format painter, or by selecting the range when
creating/selecting the Custom Number Format.

I believe Custom Number Formats are saved with the workbook, so that new
format should become part of the available selections once added.

If you want to have this Custom Number Format available for all new
workbooks, you could try to add it to a new workbook which should
otherwise be empty and save that as BOOK.XLT in your XLStart folder
(untested).
 

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