Brackets on one PC but not another in Excel 2003?

[Chopsx7]

I have a spreadsheet that contains some footnotes. The footnotes are
bracketed. i.e (1)(4). We have a LAN. When one PC opens the file the
brackets are visible and appear on the printed hardcopy. When any other PC
opens the same file there are no brackets nor are they there when it is
printed. The settings (at least the basic ones) seem to be the same on both
PCs as is the excel version. We tried changing the cell formatting to text
(it was a custom format before) on the PC where the brackets appeared and
re-saving it. However when we opened the resaved file on any other PC the
brackets were still not appearing. All other formatting appears to be
identical? Does anybody know why the brackets would be surpressed on the
other PCs?? Thanks

 

[Joel]

Make sure you are using the same printer with the same settings.

 

[Dave Peterson]

My guess is that you're entering negative numbers by using (4)

If you want the ()'s to show up for negative numbers in the format|cells|number
tab, you'll have to change a windows setting.

Windows start button|control panel
regional and language options
regional options tab
click the customize button
currency tab
change the negative currency format to show ()'s.

 

[Chopsx7]

Thanks, but there are other numbers within the spreadsheet that are negative
that show up with brackets.

 

[Dave Peterson]

I'm not sure why the custom format didn't work, but...

You could enter the footnote as text.

Either PRE-format the cell as text, then type the value.

Or start with a leading apostrophe: '(1)

But just changing the format from General to Text won't help. You still have to
make excel think you made a change to the value.

 

[Chopsx7]

I was trying to avoid doing that as it is a large number spreadsheets. I had
hoped that since it was showing up correctly on one PC we could get it to
replicate easily on the others. Thanks again.

 

[Dave Peterson]

You may want to share the custom format that didn't work and what you typed into
the cell.

Maybe someone will have a better idea.

Maybe you could create your own style (format|style) and give each cell that
contains the footnote that style.

I was trying to avoid doing that as it is a large number spreadsheets. I had
hoped that since it was showing up correctly on one PC we could get it to
replicate easily on the others. Thanks again.