Underlining percent signs

[Melissa]

I am having difficulty in Excel 2000 applying the "single
accounting" underline to a cell with the percent format.
Applying the single accounting underline to the cell
underlines everything *except* the percent sign.

The standard underline does include the percent sign, but
we prefer the accounting style as it provides some space
between the number and the underline. Also, we can use
the custom formatting to make the underline extend across
the cell. Does anyone know a work-around or trick to make
Excel underline the percent sign? I have searched the
Knowledge Base and newsgroups with no success--I did find
several other people who had asked the same question, but
there were no responses. Please accept my apologies if I
have missed an earlier thread.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

[Earl Kiosterud]

Melissa,

If these percentages are coming from another cell(s) (via a formula), you
can convert them to text, which will underline as you ask, including the %
symbol. E.g.: If the original formula was:
=A2/B2

Change it to:
=TEXT(A2/B2, "0%")

Now apply the single underline, and right-align it, and see if that works.
You won't be able to use this as a precedent to other formulas (in
subsequent calculations) without jumping through another hoop.

If these are manually entered percentage amounts, Try formatting the column
(Format - Cells - Number - Text) using this code:
;;;* @"%"

Note the space after the asterisk. These cells will really contain the
percentage amounts (33% will contain 33, not 0.33 as with numbers formatted
for %). This will work only for percentage amounts entered after so
formatting; if there are existing amounts, they'll be off by a factor of
..01, and will probably not appear. You'll have to divide by 100 in any
formulas that refer to these cells. Be careful making formulas that refer
to these cells, as they might pick up this format and confuse you into a
stupor. If that happens, set the number format back to whatever it should
be. I wish Excel wouldn't do that.