excel default format to negative currency

You can FORMAT the number to APPEAR negative but the number will be positive. Is that what you are looking for?

You have to enter a negative number for that.

If I saw what you were working with I could likely help you convert them all very quickly IF you had to do that. Or I could show you how to FORCE only negative numbers in certain columns... but I dont know what you are doing so I can't offer much help.

Formatting cannot change the underlying value, so there is no way for formatting to make a positive value be negative.

The only way to change a value is to edit the value or change the formula in that cell.

However, as far as I know (not an accountant or financials person), a red number in parentheses is pretty standard notation/format in accounting circles for "this is a negative number". In your screenshot, all of the numbers in B to G are red numbers in parentheses, so I would expect to read those numbers as negative numbers. As a scientist, the first thing I would probably do is to set the number format to "general" or fixed to 2 decimal places or something that shows positive and negative numbers the way I am used to seeing them, and see if the underlying values in those cells are already negative.

Originally Posted by MrShorty

Formatting cannot change the underlying value, so there is no way for formatting to make a positive value be negative.

The only way to change a value is to edit the value or change the formula in that cell.

However, as far as I know (not an accountant or financials person), a red number in parentheses is pretty standard notation/format in accounting circles for "this is a negative number". In your screenshot, all of the numbers in B to G are red numbers in parentheses, so I would expect to read those numbers as negative numbers. As a scientist, the first thing I would probably do is to set the number format to "general" or fixed to 2 decimal places or something that shows positive and negative numbers the way I am used to seeing them, and see if the underlying values in those cells are already negative.

Let me try to explain better. The B to G columns are data I entered manually. I had to add negative "-" simbol in front of each number. It is starting to become a major inconvenient since I had to enter a lot of numbers some of them are copy and paste. I want to save the time it take to type "-". So I'm looking for a way to make all these cells negative by default. Can it be done?

So you can enter the positive number, then copy and paste VALUES of a negative 1 over all of the cells and they ALL convert to negative in one swoop.


Instructions

1. Add -1 to a cell and copy to the clipboard
2. Select the positive numbers you want to convert to negative
3. Use Paste Special > Values + Multiply

https://www.extendoffice.com/documen...of-values.html


Learning this trick will alleviate your issue.

Originally Posted by SteveBA

Please read my comment to MrShorty you'll understand better

I did read it, before I commented. I am saying if they are copied and pasted in as negatives you can convert them with a few very quick button clicks.

I see three possible approaches to this:

1) A VBA change event procedure that detects edits in those cells, and changes the sign of the entry.
2) A "paste special" kind of operation like mikeTRON describes.
3) Using helper cells where I enter the positive values in B2:G8 then have a block of cells (B12:G18, maybe) with a formula like =-B2 (copied across the range).

If this is something I would do infrequently, I would probably go with (2). If this was something I did frequently, use (3). Under special circumstances (because I am not very excited about coding event code), resort to (1).

It should not make much of a mess on your sheet. You should only need a single cell with a -1 in that cell. Other than that one cell, it should not add anything to your spreadsheet.