There is a currency format that will do exactly that for you. Format
Cells Number Currency and on my version of XL it is the fourth one down.

--
HTH

Sandy
In Perth, the ancient capital of Scotland
and the crowning place of kings


Replace @mailinator.com with @tiscali.co.uk


"Todd" wrote in message
...
I have a spreadsheet on which I calculate my profit and loss. The final
column on this spreadsheet gives the bottom line: either I earned a
profit
(positive number) or lost (negative). I would like to color (shade, etc.)
the cells based on whether they display a positive or a negative figure.
I
would like black to represent the positive and red the negative. Is there
a
way to do this automatically? Thank you!!