Are they seen as numbers at all? Widen the cell, don't force any aligment,
are the numbers left or right aligned, if they are left they are seen as
text
you can also try

=ISTEXT(cell)

if it returns TRUE they are text, if so try copy an empty cell, select the
numbers
and do paste special and select add.

--

Regards,

Peo Sjoblom

"Hélène" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I have read every questions and replies on this site in order to get my
negative numbers to show in brackets and nothing works. I am desparate.
The
regional settings are changed to indicate negative numbers in brackets but
when I try formatting the cells in Excel, I cannot get the numbers to show
in
brackets.

I have Windows XP, Office 2003.

Please help me...

Thanks.