Excel: Formating cells for negative numbers 1

[searae]

Does anyone know if you can format cells in Excel to only be negative numbers without typing the minus sign every time?

 

[vickero007]

Right click the cell(s) and choose Format Cells and click the Number tab. Scroll down and click Custom. In the box under Type: type -0 and every number will be negative.

You don't have to just put -0 if you want 2 decimal places put -0.00

-Volkoff007

 

[Zathras]

...every number will be negative...

Every number will have a minus sign displayed in front of it, but the contents of the cells will still be positive numbers. To see, place a SUM() formula in a cell to add the numbers you entered, and format it as General.

 

[vickero007]

If every # is only going to be negative like you said then as long as you have any SUM or related fields also formatted the same it will make no difference since arithmatic on all negative numbers is no different than the same on all positive numbers.

However, if you will be using these numbers in conjunction with positive numbers you'll need another solution, VBA would probably be the best alternative.

-Volkoff007

 

[beniez]

Searae

You can input a set of numbers as positive; highlight the range of cells and choose Edit, Copy; Paste Special Subtract to a blank area of the spreadsheet (this turns them negative by subtracting them from zero); and then Cut and Paste them back to the original place. This is one of those solutions that sounds more complicated than it is; it's pretty quick to do.

Any better solutions would be interesting. I guess you could write some VBA to do it, but it depends on whether you're mixing positive and negative numbers and what sort of inputting you're doing.

HTH

Ben