Hi Michael
one way: If you have Excel 2002+: Select the cells. goto 'Data - Text
to columns'. Click OK, OK, then Advanced. Check the treat trailing
minus as negative checkbox, then Finish. This should do

Also have a look at:
http://www.mcgimpsey.com/excel/postfixnegatives.html

HTH
Frank

Michael Rhein wrote:
Newbie questions :
I am currently working with some output report from my company
database in *.txt format. After converting to *.xls, i got the
negative records shows negative sign AFTER the number (example : 254
-) instead of before the number like it normally does.

Let say the number is in cell B1. So I use :
=IF(RIGHT(B1,1)="-",LEFT(B1,(LENB1)-1)))*-1,B1) to make it right.

Is there any simpler way rather than having some conditions ?

TIA
michael