Quick Excel Question

[NakaNaka]

In excel, I want a box to read "+50" or "-50" or some variation of + and - a number. But when I try to do +75 it automatically just turns it in to 75. I need that plus sign. How can I get excel to stop changing that?

Thanks
-Phil

 

[Thyme]

Put a ' in front

 

[NakaNaka]

Originally posted by: Thyme
Put a ' in front

Ok thanks.

 

[statik213]

There's a way you can do conditional formatting.... if you put a ' in front you might not be able to do arithmatic with those cells. I don't have excel in front of me, but look around for conditional formatting options...

 

[Thyme]

I think Excel will figure out it's not supposed to ignore the symbol if you try to do math on it. If you do anything involving it as a string, it will treat the + as a character whether you want it or not. And obviously, if this is something that has to be inputted many times or is output, you'll need to format the cells.

 

[WannaFly]

Right Click Cell(s) -> Format Cells -> Custom -> put this in as the Type:
+#;-#

edit:
above puts 0 as just a '+'
this puts +0:
+#0;-#0

 

[Koenigsegg]

Originally posted by: Thyme
I think Excel will figure out it's not supposed to ignore the symbol if you try to do math on it. If you do anything involving it as a string, it will treat the + as a character whether you want it or not. And obviously, if this is something that has to be inputted many times or is output, you'll need to format the cells.

I tried that, it won't sum it..

 

[Thyme]

You can use simple arithmetic. If you needed formulas for multiple rows, then you'd want to use the method WannaFly posted. The poster said it was a "Quick Excel Question," so I gave the answer for putting in a few numerical cells at text.