converting neg. # to positive ones..

[Frances Del Rio]

I have a spreadsheet full of numbers like -0.2, -0.4, -0.7, etc. that I
need to convert to positive numbers.. someone at work by mistake typed
in these #s with parenthesis, now excel is reading them as neg.
numbers.. I imagine there's some kind of formula I can apply to all the
cells that contain these numbers to convert them to positive #s, but
don't know which one (I do know how to do formulas..) it's for charting
purposes, so these values REALLY need to be positive values (they don't
need to just LOOK like positive values..)

I don't have a computer at home, am at a friend's house, where I just
opened a news acct in netscape, but at work I have access to usenet only
thru google, and they don't carry the microsoft.public groups, so PLEASE
respond to me by e-mail.. hopefully before Monday morning.. thank you
very much..

Frances Del Rio
www.francesdelrio.com

 

[RagDyer]

Enter minus one "-1" (no quotes) into an empty cell.
Right click in the cell and choose Copy.
Select the cells with the negative values.
Right click in the selection and choose PasteSpecial,
Then click Multiply, then <OK>.

Clear the cell with the minus one.
--

HTH,

RD
==============================================
Please keep all correspondence within the Group, so all may benefit!
==============================================



I have a spreadsheet full of numbers like -0.2, -0.4, -0.7, etc. that I
need to convert to positive numbers.. someone at work by mistake typed
in these #s with parenthesis, now excel is reading them as neg.
numbers.. I imagine there's some kind of formula I can apply to all the
cells that contain these numbers to convert them to positive #s, but
don't know which one (I do know how to do formulas..) it's for charting
purposes, so these values REALLY need to be positive values (they don't
need to just LOOK like positive values..)

I don't have a computer at home, am at a friend's house, where I just
opened a news acct in netscape, but at work I have access to usenet only
thru google, and they don't carry the microsoft.public groups, so PLEASE
respond to me by e-mail.. hopefully before Monday morning.. thank you
very much..

Frances Del Rio
www.francesdelrio.com

 

[Don Guillett]

You should have given your complete email so we didn't have to go thru a
web site. You need to look at these.

http://tinyurl.com/n8cl

http://groups.google.com/googlegroups/help.html

one answer
Enter minus one "-1" (no quotes) into an empty cell.
Right click in the cell and choose Copy.
Select the cells with the negative values.
Right click in the selection and choose PasteSpecial,
Then click Multiply, then <OK>.

Clear the cell with the minus one.

 

[David McRitchie]

You made us go through tinyurl just to get to something not as good as
http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search?q=group:*Excel*&num=100
or even this
http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search?q=group:*Excel*

Besides the PasteSpecial another solution is a macro solution:
Fix Right Minus sign (#fixrightminus)
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/insrtrow.htm#fixrightminus
using

cell.Value = CDbl(cell.Value)
or what I like better
cell.Value = CDbl(Replace(cell.Value, "CR", "-"))

 

[Henry]

Francis,

Insert three columns to the right of your column with numbers in it.
Assuming your numbers are in Col A then insert Col B, Col C and Col D.
In B1 put =A1*A1
In C1 put =SQRT(B1)
Copy these down as far as you need.
Select all the used cells in Col C and Copy them.
PasteSpecial (Values) to Col D
Delete Columns A, B and C
The square of a negative number is always positive (-2 * -2 = 4)
The square root of a positive number is always positive.

HTH
Henry