Parentheses for negative numbers in Excel 2011

Same issue here with Excel 2011, problem started with the Yosemite installation and was not fixed with 10.10.1 nor the latest Microsoft update.

It's a big problem for accountants!

On the Microsoft forum this gentleman replied with a workaround but it's a hassle to have to do this for each new spreadsheet.

JonathanBuhacoff replied on November 9, 2014

If you go to the dialog shown in Phillip's post and select "Custom" on the left side, you can enter this to get the parenthesis back:

$#,##0;[Red](-$#,##0)

Or this to use square brackets:

$#,##0;[Red]"["-$#,##0"]"

The format means use $#,##0 for positive numbers and use [-$#,##0] in red for negative numbers.

You could remove the hyphen too and just do this:

$#,##0;[Red]"["$#,##0"]"

I hope Apple takes note and pushes a fix for us.

So a few of the steps included in this thread and a microsoft link have allowed me to replicate and create a "quick button" in Mac 2011 Office so I don't have to copy the formula into custom constantly and it's always there for new excel documents.

OK - "Custom number" formula is $* #,##0;[Red]$* (#,##0) This will give you a number format that looks like the numbers in my screen shot below in columns H & I.

I applied that "custom" number format to the numbers then selected it, and clicked over to the format area, next to the numbers area. Towards the bottom there's the little down triangle, then I clicked on new cell style. Since I had the cell I had done "custom" to already selected, all of the info was accurate, so I just named it what I wanted (Accounting) and saved it. Now I just click on accounting in the format section instead of the accounting in the numbers section.

Next, i deleted that cell with the numbers in so essentially i had a document that looked exactly like a "new" document minus the fact that I now have the accounting option under format. Now, if you stop here, the accounting format will not come back on your next new document.... soooo you have to create an .xltx document like the link below walks you thorugh. After doing every step in that support page, every "new" excel document opens using my altered template and has the "accounting" button how it should be always there at the top under the format section. I did copy and paste the support section below in case that page disappears - which microsoft is wont to do.

https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/Customize-how-Excel-opens-workbooks-and -sheets-8f3c2396-3883-4e3e-a668-8254aeff…

Use a custom template for all new workbooks

When Excel opens a new workbook, the new file is created from a template called Workbook. To use a custom template, you must replace the default Workbook template with your own.

1. Open the template that you want to use as the new default template.
2. On the Excel menu, click File, and then click Save As.
3. In the Save As box, type:Workbook
4. Use the column browser to select Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Office/Startup/Excel, and then clickSave.
5. In the Finder, open Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Office/Startup/Excel.
6. Select the Workbook file, and on the Action pop-up menu , click Get Info.
7. On the Name & Extension pane, in the box containing the file name, select the .xltx portion of the file name, press DELETE, and then press RETURN.The "Are you sure you want to remove the extension '.xltx'?" message is displayed.
8. Click Remove.NOTE The file extension must be removed for Excel to recognize the new version of the Workbook template.

Heres how I get it to work:

Go to Format, Go to Cell, Go to Custom.

Go to the long box with the word TYPE in it, delete everything in it and create this in that box:

#,##0_);[Red](#,##0);#-#_) That is a minus sign at the end of the formula between the two # symbols.

Works for me anyway on my imac

I just installed the latest office updates for 2011 and now my negative parens are available as a selection in the number format. I know it wasn't there the other day before I installed the updates. I also have OS X El Capitan Here is the version I have of Excel after my install. Finally they fixed this. Thank you

Pick custom and use this formula: 0_);[red](0)

Same problem as of 2/3/2015. I can't believe neither Apple nor Microsoft are willing to fix this over 3 months after the OS upgrade.

My work around is copying the bracket format from an old worksheet to the new worksheet. Kind of a hassle.

Same issue as the others. Thank you for the workaround jmgathg. Another workaround I found was copying the (negative number) format from another spreadsheet that was created prior to my upgrade. Seemed to work.

This works for me... choose Currency 2 or Currency 3 from the Format menu in the ribbon. Note that it's also possible to edit the format for the Currency cell style. You get there by right-click (ctrl-click) and choose Modify.

Hope this helps!

Have either of you updated your licenses of MS Office for Mac. Look under the Help menu in any MS Office for Mac app and select Updates.

This is still a problem. EOY close and tax season in full swing. When will Mac get serious about the business users and market???

Yes, the custom format work-around does fix it - just incredibly inconvenient to have to do for every sheet (tab) of every spreadsheet (file).

Other solution is to use Google Sheets - either in place of Excel or to create (start) the file, then download from Google drive in *.xlsx format - presto, conventional commas and negative parenthesis in Excel for Mac.

This is not an issue with Excel, it is an issue with Yosemite. I just upgraded to Yosemite, and I have this problem not only with Excel, but also with my accounting software (Account Edge by Acclivity). For some reason Yosemite has removed the formatting functionality for negative numbers in parentheses. The rather cumbersome custom formatting workaround works in Excel, but not in my accounting software. I'm hopeful Apple will pay attention and fix this.

I converted to Yosemite a couple of weeks ago. The red parentheses were there until I ran the Microsoft option yesterday. I was able to bring back the parenthesis using the Custom option and selecting the option in parenthesis, and then highlighting the column in Red. However, the option for parenthesis isn't always there. Sometimes in a blank cell Custom gets me just 4 formats. If I type in the negative #, then search for Custom, I will get the parenthesis.

As someone that works with spreadsheets all day long, I am disgusted. Absolutely unbelievable that Microsoft would let this happen without fixing it. How can I produce a professional product - the negative sign does not align the #'s. 👿 Fortunately, (or sadly), I have a Windows computer I hang onto just for stuff like this.

Yes, this is absolutely absurd. I've also tried calling Microsoft about it and got nowhere either. There is some compatibility issue between Excel for Mac 2011 and 2016 with Yosemite and as another user mentioned also with El Capitan. Everything worked fine prior to Yosemite. It has been more than a year since this issue first appeared (September 2014 with the launch of Yosemite) and still no fix. In this year there has been an update from Excel for Mac 2011 to 2016 and no still fix. Also in this same year there has been an update from Yosemite to El Capitan and still no fix.

What is Apple and/or Microsoft going to do about it?

Aside from the custom format workaround (which is tedious) - does anyone know if there is some kind of Macro that can be run every time Excel opens up to fix this issue?

Interesting that the problem goes away with a newer version of Excel. Hard to imagine why this is a Yosemite problem, though must confess for me it arose when I upgraded to Yosemite 10.10.5 and Office 2011 14.5.5 a few weeks ago.

Given that there are problems with spreadsheet window size and Save As window size with Excel 2011, perhaps this is MicroSoft's way of encouraging an upgrade to an even newer version of Office?

On the other hand, there is no problem (yet) with Office 2008 under Yosemite, so for me (like a few others) I am going back to the older version.