converting minus quantities to plus

[Paul Bennett]

I download my bank statements and store them in Excel. the bank has the
annoying habit of displaying debit items as minus quantities with a minus
sign attached. this makes it awkward for manipulating the figures
afterwards. I've tried displaying them in red but they are still shown with
a minus in the bar at the top.is there a way of mass converting this row of
minus figures into ones without the minus sign? I know there is probably a
simple way of doing this but I can't figure it out.i have Windows XP Home
Edition.

thanks

Paul

 

[damorrison]

did you try formatting the row
highlight your range
right click mouse
select format cells
numbers
select the format you want
ok

 

[bpeltzer]

If you want to actually change the negative values to positive (as opposed to
just displaying them as such), type a -1 in some random cell and copy it.
Then select your debit items and Edit > Paste Special, select Values and
Multiply then click OK.

 

[Peo Sjoblom]

The easiest way if you have excel 2002 onwards is to select the range, do
data>text to column, click next twice and select advanced, make sure
trailing minus for negative numbers is checked and then click OK twice

--
Regards,

Peo Sjoblom

(No private emails please)

 

[Bill Ridgeway]

Insert a helper column with the formula =a1*-1

Regards.

Bill Ridgeway
Computer Solutions