Number formatting

[Fred Holmes]

Excel 2000, Windows 2000

A couple of questions:

In the number format dialog there are some "accounting" formats shown
as templates, e.g.:

_($* #,##0.00_);_($* (#,##0.00);_($* "-"??_);_(@_)

Where is there a "complete" discussion of the syntax of these
formatting formulae? Not in the Excel Help that I can find. For
example, what does the enclosing "_(...)" do for the formatting? It
looks like there are a lot of possibilities here. I especially like
discovering a format where the "$" can be put at the left edge of the
cell, not adjacent to the number. But to find all of what the above
formula does, all I can to is plug in a bunch of different numbers and
see what happens.

Short of writing a macro (i.e., using the vba editor to write the
number format), is there any way to "open up" the number format dialog
so that one can read the entire format formula string all at once? I
suppose I could also write it "anywhere" and copy/paste it into the
provided text box (which is much too short for the above number format
formula to be fully displayed).

Many thanks,

Fred Holmes

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I don't have XL2000, but there's a complete discussion in XL2004 under
the "About custom number formats" help topic.

Specifically:

The _ character causes a space the width of the character that follows
it to be inserted.

The * character extends the character that follows it to be repeated to
fill the cell.

 

[Jason Morin]

John Walkenbach has a file you can download that
demonstrates various custom number formats. This will get
you started:

http://j-walk.com/ss/excel/tips/tip19.htm

HTH
Jason
Atlanta, GA