How to change positive values in a cell to negative in Excel 2000

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mary-Anne
  • Start date Start date
M

Mary-Anne

Say I have a column of numbers and they are positive and I decide that the
sum function would be simpler if they were shown as negative values:

ie 300 in one cell and -250 in another cell gives you an answer of 50. If,
the -250 is shown as 250 how can I change it to -250 to give me the correct
result?

Tedious to retype data.
 
Type -1 into an empty cell. Copy that cell and then highlight your column of
numbers. Select Edit - Paste special and choose the radio button multiply.
 
Well, you could just change the formula, so instead of something like:

=SUM(A1:B1)

you could make it:

=A1-B1

then just copy it down. Obviously, I'm guessing your formula as you do
not give details.

Hope this helps.

Pete
 
I tried that, but the answer is wrong. eg 10 rows with 100 in Column 1. Sum
will give answer 1000. If I manually change one x 100 in a cell to -100 the
answer will be 900. Correct answer.

If I use your solution the answer comes to 800?? Don't understand the maths
but I do know the answer is wrong.
 
If the sum were that simple it would be easy peasy to just change the
formula. However, in a long, complex spreadsheet it becomes really hairy
changing the formula.

I am looking for a neat, easy, quick way of selecting a cell, or multiple
cells, and changing the value to either positive or negative. Possible?
 
If you have 10 rows at 100 then the sum is 1000. If you want an answer of
900, then you have to add a row at -100. The answer of 800 with my method is
correct because if you change 1 of the rows to -100, you then still only have
10 rows, 9 rows adding up to 900 and 1 row at -100 giving you 800.
If you make all 10 rows -100 which is what your original question stated
then the sum is -1000
 
Yes! You are right ...it works. However, how do I do the reverse ie change
negative values to positive?
 

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