"Any reason?": That's just the way Excel is. It looks at some Regional
settings, but not all.

There's no need to use Conditional Formatting. Just specify a custom format
like: #,##0.00;(#,##0.00)

Regards,
Fred

"AJW30" wrote in message
...
Having chosen the ( ) format for negative numbers via the
Regional/Keyboard
options in the Control panel, this still does not show as an option in the
normal list of number formats. Negative numbers on a spreadsheet just
appear
with a minus sign. Any reason? I have tried the Conditional Formatting but
the end result is a number appearing as -(x,xxx.xx). I don't wish to see
the
minus sign. I'm using Excel in Office 2007 with Windows 7