Parentheses for negative numbers in Excel 2011

Amazing - thanks!

Last weekend I upgraded to Office 2016 for Mac and unfortunately the problem was not fixed with this new version Office/Excel. Hard to believe this can't be fixed.

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

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.

how can apple leave this unresolved for a year, yet expect business people to feel confident that apple products should move beyond the executive suite usually occupied by megalomaniacs who must have the latest and greatest tech toy and beyond creative prima donnas in marketing who demand the graphics capabilities?

it has been nearly a year since this was reported and there is still no fix. at their recent "love in" where the ipad pro was launched, apple announced to us all that they were getting serious about supporting business with the ipad pro and apps. really? do they realize that many (most?) financial professionals use parentheses for negative values? does anyone from apple bother to read this support blog?

thanks to the posters who have provided the work around. i do very little spreadsheet work myself these days, but when i create a spreadsheet i want to do it the right way (with negative numbers in parentheses).

I've already installed el capitan and update Microsoft Excel for Mac 2011 to version 14.5.5, the problem is still unresolved. :-(

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?

I'm on Excel 2016, and just upgraded to El Capitan.

I now have brackets again!

That's great, thanks for sharing!

Only thing is I can't update to El Capitan yet since there are known issues with Exchange... I've been burned so many times with Exchange issues from both Mavericks and Yosemite and will have to wait another few months until all of that gets sorted out!

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.

t. anthony:

I think it was the upgrade from Yosemite to El Capitan that did it. I was using Excel 2016 prior to upgrading to El Capitan, and still had the issue.

Bill

I have installed 2016, but I'm still not getting the brackets. I restarted... on El Capitan, and baffled.

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

I just now installed the latest update for Excel for Mac 2011 (identical to the one above from chrisfromlaguna hills) and am running Yosemite - but I still have NO PARENTHESIS - wow, this is crazy!