Yes. Change
0.00_);[Red](-0.00%)

to
0.00%_);[Red](-0.00%)

Regards,
Fred.

"Tschurin" wrote in message
...
Shane

If you are still there, I've noticed that what you suggested I type for
conditional formatting does produce the correct red text and parentheses
for
negative percentage change. However postive percentage change shows up as
a
number instead of a percentage, e.g. 0.07, instead of 7.05%. Is this
easily
fixed?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me on this,
Geoff

"ShaneDevenshire" wrote:

Hi,

The important thing is that you can do what you need.

Regarding 2007 - I have personally documented over 1730 change in Excel
2007, and there are more; this was a monster upgrade, going from 2002 to
2003
I would have had trouble finding 20. I also submitted over 600 suggested
changes to Excel 2007 to Microsoft, and I am only one user out of
600,000,000
users. It's always a question of resources and deadlines - how many
programmers can you place against the task and when will you release the
product.

--
Thanks,
Shane Devenshire


"Tschurin" wrote:

Shane

Thanks for your help
Obviously I am not very knowledgeable about formatting or custom
formatting
of cells.
I was able to just cut and paste your "code" and it seems to work fine.

I still don't necessarily agree that Excel 2007 should provide only one
prepared way to format percentage [for most other categories it
provides
multiple options] but, as the saying goes, I'd rather find a solution
than be
right.

Regards,
Geoff


"ShaneDevenshire" wrote:

Hi,

Before I delve in the question of why, lets answer the question of
how:

1. Choose Format, Cells, Number tab, Custom and enter the following
on the
Type line
0.00_);[Red](-0.00%)
If you want it to 2 decimal places.
2. Using Conditional Formatting you set up your basic format and then
choose
Format, Conditional Formatting, choose less than from the second drop
down,
enter 0 in the third box, click Format and on the Font tab set the
Color to
Red.

Why - because that's how Microsoft programmed it. There are millions
of
possible formats that people might want so Micrsoft decided to build
some in
and leave others out. You can't please all the people all the time.
You may
not remember Lotus 1-2-3 but you had to live with their built in
formats -
you couldn't design any of your own, and the built in ones were, by
present
day standards, very limited.

--
Thanks,
Shane Devenshire


"Tschurin" wrote:

I understand from looking at past threads that there is a way to
conditionally format a negative percent so that it is red.

But why isn't that a choice automatically provided by Excel?

When you format a cell with a number in it, you are given a choice
to format
a negative number in black or red, with or without a parenthesis
around the
number.

Why shouldn't you have the option of formatting a negative
percentage in
red, with or without parentheses. Red with parentheses is much
easier to read
than the thin negative sign to the left in black. At least one
should have
the option.

Geoff

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