French numeric formats

[Anthony LeBaron]

I am having problems formatting french NEGATIVE numbers.
Specifically, our client requires negative numbers to be represented as (n
nnn), as opposed to -n nnn.
I have changed the language in my control panel, and Excel is accepting the
space seperator, but is not accepting the brackets as an available option,
even though I have enabled this in the regional setting (customize)
Oddly enough, numbers in the thousands are properly displayed, but numbers
less than 1000 are displayed as -nnn

Any suggestions?

--
Anthony LeBaron
Senior Designer - Interactive
Interbrand
284 King Street East
Toronto, ON M5A 1K4

416 366 7100

 

[Bob Phillips]

Anthony,

Without changing the language settings, I was able to get it with a custom
format (Format>Cells Format) of #,##0'(#,##0)

--

HTH

RP
(remove nothere from the email address if mailing direct)

 

[Anthony LeBaron]

Thanks Bob, your format makes sense to me.
I actually found this custom format (below) in another spreadsheet. It
works - but I don't understand it at all. Do you?
0_);(0)

 

[Dave Peterson]

Number formats have 4 parts each separated by semicolons.

positive;negative;zero;text

Your custom formula formats negatives as (0). (easy one first)

Your positive numbers use 0_)

If you look at excel's help, you'll see that underscore character tells excel to
reserve room for the space the next character would take. In your example, the
closing paren.

This makes your ones digits line up nicely with positive or negative numbers.



"Anthony LeBaron