How to change the sign on selected values.

I have repeated grids all linked to the primary grid. Conditional highlighting colours the fill black for positive values and white for negative. I change the pattern of black and white by changing negative numbers to positive (and vice versa) in the primary grid. Right now I do so by clicking on each cell I want to change and erasing or adding the "-". But zooming in and out, clicking 2 or 3 times to get the cursor in place, then typing is tedious and I would prefer to select a bunch of cells (not in a row or column - in irregular groups) and multiply them by -1 to change the sign. If I could even do it to one cell at a time with a click, it would be easier (because I also wouldn't have to zoom in). Any ideas on how can I do this?

Posted on Sep 14, 2023 3:12 PM

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Question marked as Best answer

If you are familiar with shortcuts, here is a link to one that will do what you are asking on a selected range of cells. The default operation is to multiply by -1 but you can do other math operations (i.e., +-*/ each cell with a number)


https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/63d183dd22ba41de9078eca808d5e70d

Posted on Sep 14, 2023 4:34 PM

3 replies

Sep 14, 2023 6:02 PM in response to Badunit

Thank you! That was just what I needed!


I wasn't familiar with shortcuts, but now that I know about them, I will be. I've added the shortcut, given it its own keyboard shortcut and tested it. It works great - so much faster. The only issue is that if I select multiple cells, it treats the selection as a shift-click, rather than a ⌘-click, but I can work with that.

How to change the sign on selected values.

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