Maybe it's your Windows regional settings that needs to be changed.

Windows start button|settings|control panel|regional settings
(in win98)

Currency tab
check the negative number format (use one with parentheses).


Bruce wrote:

you used to be able to use parentheses to show negative numbers in excel but
in the latest version (2003) they've removed this feature, you can't even set
it up as a custom format. any one know how i could do this.

--

Dave Peterson