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Steve
 
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"Bob Phillips" wrote:
If I highlight several numbers in a column, Excel will indicate the
sum. But it always shows that sum as a positive number, even if it's
actually negative. Is there any way to change this behavior?


Are you talking about the sum in the status bar. It does display the sum
as negative number as well.


Yep, the status bar. As an example, entered -600 in one cell and +500
in the next. The status bar says Sum=100.


Just played around with this a bit - apparently Excel does not
recognize numbers in red as negative, unless they're also in
parentheses - in spite of the fact that cell formatting provides the
option of unadorned red numbers to indicate negatives. This must be
some sorta bug?


Excel does not per se recognise any format as negative numbers, it
recognises negative numbers by the fact that they are less than 0, either
entered as less than zero, or as a result of a calculation. Red, and/or
parentheses are just a way of showing a number in the visual presentation of
that cell.


That makes perfect sense - so it must mean that Excel is not capable
of showing the color red in the status line? And therefore, without
formatting the cell to include the minus sign or parentheses, there's
no way to tell whether the Sum is positive or negative?